


A Heart Even More Your Own

by Rumaan



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Drama, F/M, Pining, Romance, persuasion au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 19:09:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10770594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumaan/pseuds/Rumaan
Summary: When Rory is Eighteen she is persuaded to break up with Jess. It's a decision that haunts her a decade later.





	1. 2003

**Author's Note:**

> So I love Persuasion and the literati fic fest felt like the perfect opportunity to write a modern au version for Rory and Jess.
> 
> For this AU, I've aged Doula up and there's only a 14 year age gap between her and Jess.
> 
> Many thanks to Rain and Kris for running this amazing fest and for generally being awesome. 
> 
> And last, but definitely not least, a big thank you to Rinnie for beta'ing this and listening to me go on and on endlessly about it.

“Are you really going to date that boy all through summer into your freshman year at Yale?” 

The question from her grandma stuns Rory and she looks up from the green beans she had been contemplating. 

“What?” she asks stupidly. 

“That boy. Luke’s nephew. Are you going to keep dating him?” 

Rory steadily avoids her mom’s eyes which she can feel fixed on her. “You mean Jess? He has a name, Grandma.” 

“Jess,” her grandma says as if it’s something nasty. She takes a sip of wine afterwards as if she needs to wash the feel of it out of her mouth. 

“Yes, of course,” Rory says, although maybe not as convincingly as she would like. “Why would I break up with him?” 

She doesn’t like just how often she’s thought about ending it with Jess recently. Things have been difficult between them over the past couple of weeks. He continues to be evasive about things and over the last couple of days she can tell something is bugging him. She can feel it in the way his eyes skitter from hers when she catches him watching her, but as usual Jess won’t open up. He continues to shrug any queries she has off. But sometimes, when he thinks she isn’t looking, she catches a guilty look on his face as if there’s something he’s hiding and he knows he shouldn’t be. 

“I don’t think it’s wise to go into Yale dating a boy. You are closing yourself off to so many options,” her grandma continues to say. “This boy has no future from what I can tell. He’s tied to that town and that diner whereas as you, my dear, have so many brilliant things ahead of you.” 

Finally looking at her mom, Rory sees warring emotions on Lorelai’s face. Her mom still dislikes Jess. Thinks he treats her badly and that she could do better. Yet, Lorelai doesn’t want to agree with Emily because she hates agreeing with Grandma. 

But then Lorelai opens her mouth. “I think your grandma’s right,” she says, shocking Rory. “Yale is going to be such a big experience to you and I would hate for you to miss out on anything because you have tied yourself to a relationship back in Stars Hollow.” 

“There,” Emily says in pleased surprise. “Even your mother agrees with me.” 

“But why would dating Jess close me off to anything at Yale?” 

“He’s going to pull you away from Yale. You’ll be travelling back to see him when you should be networking and making new friends at Yale,” her grandma says. 

_Twenty two point eight miles_  

She can hear him say it with the slightly embarrassed expression on his face that he’d actually looked it up. She loves that he did. That he’d waited for her to make her concrete decision before sharing that he is happy she is going to be close by. This way, she doesn’t feel pressured to stay because she knows he wants her to, but she still knows that he wants her close by. Especially because there are days when she wonders just how much she means to Jess. If he really cares about her at all or if it was all about the chase for him. He isn’t particularly good at making her feel special the way Dean did and she struggles with it. It makes her insecure and nervous about her place in his life, which brings her back to the secrets he keeps. Realistically, she knows so little about him. He doesn’t talk about growing up in New York and he won’t talk about the future. Everything with Jess is day to day and she cannot understand that mind set. Not when she’s had her future planned out from the moment they were asked what they wanted to be at school by their teacher. His lack of plans make her anxious. She wonders if she’s nothing more than a convenience to him. Someone to pass the time with now before he moves on to something else. 

“But I’ll still have time to see him and make friends,” she says a little desperately looking towards her mom and trying to ignore the gnawing doubt that is twisting up her stomach. 

“And do all that school work?” her mom asks. 

Now the doubts set in about just how this relationship is going to work once she is at Yale. She’s been putting off thinking about it too much. Especially as they are struggling to make it work now when they are both based in Stars Hollow. Jess continues to feel as if he’s too confined by the small town. As if he’s going to just bail any minute because he can’t bear to be there any longer, which affects her. There is no security in this relationship unlike with Dean. Rory never knows when she’s next going to see Jess because he rarely makes plans and doesn’t call when he says he will. How will that work when she’s based at Yale and can’t just walk into the diner to see him? She doesn’t even have a car to come and go. 

“We’re going to Europe for most of the summer, too,” her mom points out. “You’re going to go straight from graduating Chilton to travelling around Europe to getting back and starting Yale. When are you realistically even going to see each other?” 

“But there’s email and phone calls.” 

Lorelai snorts. “He rarely calls you now and won’t get a cell phone. Does he even have an email?” 

Her heart sinks at her mom’s words and she looks between the other two women who are presenting a united front. Her grandma is serene. She has never approved of this relationship anyway and flat out hated Jess when she met him. Not really her fault with how badly that evening went with that black eye. Rory still isn’t sure she believes the football explanation but she hasn’t heard about any fights and Dean wouldn’t lie to her about that. Her mom looks a little more conflicted. Lorelai hates how her own parents have meddled in her life and so the irony of this conversation won’t be passing her by. However, that makes her argument all the more powerful. She wouldn’t be saying this to Rory if she truly didn’t believe in what she was saying. 

There’s a kernel of truth in her words, too, that Rory cannot deny. How she and Jess were going to communicate over the summer has been plaguing her thoughts already. She has hoped that he would get an email address, but so far he hasn’t mentioned it. He does use the internet, too. The search regarding the distance between New Haven and Stars Hollow proves that. Would they survive a whole summer with minimal contact or would she come home and find that he’s moved on? She did last year. 

“Listen, kid,” her mom says. “I wouldn’t just say this to break you and Jess up. But do you really see this lasting for much longer? Do you see it surviving your first semester at Yale?” 

Realistically, Rory can’t say that she does. She’s just refused to think about it too much. 

“So you think I should end it?” 

“Oh yes, without a doubt,” her grandma says calmly. “Why tie yourself down to a boy going nowhere when you are going to Yale? The boys there will be eminently more suitable.” 

It’s easy to ignore Emily’s words. They are rooted in snobbery. So Rory looks towards her mom, who has a sad expression on her face. 

“I do. I just don’t think this is the right relationship for you going forward and you’ll be fretting about Jess when you should be concentrating on your first year at Yale.” Her mom’s hand creeps across the table and grasps hers. “Think about your future. Can you really see Jess in it?” 

It’s the killer blow. She wants to see Jess in her future. Wants to believe that he’ll always been there. But the problem is he’s rarely there now. She doesn’t feel she can rely on Jess the way she did Dean. There’s a wild element to Jess that has always been exciting. He’s unpredictable and never boring, but as their relationship has progressed, she’s come to realise that she actually likes predictable more than she thought. She likes knowing her weekend plans in advance and knowing when she’s going to see him. She can’t see that lessening once she gets to Yale just as she cannot see Jess suddenly becoming someone who plans even a couple of days in advance. He’s a whim guy and she’s just not. 

Bowing her head and looking at her plate once more, Rory pushes the green beans around. She blinks back tears from her eyes as the realisation that she needs to end it with Jess fully hits her. Her mom and grandma are right. Their relationship is barely functioning now and it’s going to be so much harder once she’s at Yale. It would be cleaner and easier just to let go now. 

\---------

Part of Rory is tempted to go to the party. Not to break up with Jess beforehand and go with him and pretend for one last night that everything is fine between them. But she knows that will be cruel. Jess doesn’t have any friends in Stars Hollow and is only going to this party because she wants to go. He has no problem eschewing everyone in town and holing up somewhere with a book. 

She walks into Luke’s diner, her heart in mouth. She’s never had to break up with someone before and she has no idea how to really go about it. It’s not like she hasn’t tried to prepare. She spent all of last night making lists of points on how to do it, but it flies all out of her mind now that she’s actually here. 

Luke is behind the counter as always and he smiles and nods at her. “Jess is upstairs,” he says. 

Rory smiles her thanks but her throat is so thick that she cannot get any words out. Her heart hammers as she walks up to the apartment. 

Jess is lying on his bed, reading. He looks up when she comes in and gives her that small smile that always makes her chest tighten with how fond it is. “Hey,” he says getting up. “Aren’t we meant to meet up in a couple of hours?” he asks.

She didn’t think it was possible but her shoulders tighten even further. She’s so tense that she feels as if she’s about to snap. It doesn’t take Jess long to realise. He’s always been good at reading people and now is no exception. 

“Is everything okay?” 

“Yeah,” she says uncomfortably, too aware of how bad she is at concealing her feelings. 

He snorts a little and says, “Want to try that again?” 

Taking a deep breath and deciding that drawing this out isn’t going to help anyone, she says, “Jess, I need to talk to you…about us.” 

It’s amazing how quickly the shutters go up. The tender humour leaves his face and she’s faced instead with a blank faced Jess. The Jess she dislikes so much, but in some ways perhaps it’s easier to have that version of him standing in front of her. 

“What about us?” he asks with an edge. 

“I just don’t think it’s working,” she says with a rush. Adrenaline pumps through her bloodstream making her light headed as her heart pounds heavily in her chest. “I don’t think we’ll make it last when I get to Yale so maybe it’s just easier to finish it now. It can be hard enough between us now and we’re living in the same small place. What’s going to happen when I get to New Haven? We’re going to be over twenty miles apart and you don't even have a cell. And Mom’s right, I’m going to be away from most of the summer, anyway, and then at college and are you really going to stay in Stars Hollow once you don’t have to? Plus, my time is going to be taken up with studying that I doubt I’ll make it back here as much as I’d like to. Enough to make this relationship work. So, yeah, I think it's best if we end it now. What's the point in dragging this out? I...er...really don't want to go away this summer with these worries hanging over my head. And on the bright side, you won't have to come to the party tonight,” Rory trails off with a wince at how bad that attempt at a joke was. 

The silence that falls when she stops talking is oppressive in how loaded it is. It’s almost thick enough to cut with an actual knife. She hasn’t been able to look at him since she started talking, but his lack of response has her eyes skittering to his face. There’s no apparent emotion, just a tick in his jaw and something she cannot read in his eyes.

 

He looks at her and she almost flinches at the hard expression on his face. “Okay,” he says. 

“That’s it?” she asks without thinking. 

“What else is there to say? I take it you’ve thought hard about this. Made a list somewhere. You mentioned your mom so I presume you’ve spoken to her about it. Perhaps others.” 

It’s a painful reminder of just how well he knows her. Knows that she doesn’t make decisions lightly and on a whim. 

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “Yeah, there’s a list and I spoke to Mom and my grandma, too. They don’t think we’ll work going into Yale. That it’s best to make a clean break now.” 

He gives a humourless bark of laughter and there’s a bleakness on his face that she’s never seen before. “Then there’s not much to say. You seem to have discussed this with your family and agree with them so what would be the point of me remonstrating with you?” 

Tears flood her eyes and sadness crowds up her throat rendering her unable to say anything in response. So she nods, turns away and walks back towards the open door. She pauses on the threshold, looks briefly back at him. He hasn’t moved, just watches her, his book resting limply in his hand down by his side as he stands just in front of his bed, looking almost a little lost. She has the urge to run back to him, fling her arms around him and kiss his weird expression away into something she recognises. But her mom and grandma are right. This relationship has been too hard already and it’s not going to get any easier when she’s away at Yale. 

_It’s kinder to just end it now,_ she tells herself. _For both of us._  

Blinking away her tears, she bends her head and walks down the stairs and out the diner as quickly as she can. The blood is roaring in her ears so she doesn’t hear Luke calling to her or his puzzled look at her quick exit. She doesn’t hear the loud thump of something hitting the wall that has customers looking up towards the diner ceiling or Luke hurrying upstairs. 

As soon as she’s out the diner, she breaks into a run. The tears are leaking down her face now and she wants nothing more than the comfort of her bedroom. 

\----------- 

The next week passes in a haze for Rory. She misses Jess. Misses being able to excitedly show him a book she’s reading or surprising Lane with some obscure bit of early punk music trivia that he’s told her. Just how much she misses him takes her by surprise. She’d spent the past couple of weeks feeling frustrated with him, feeling like she’d made a mistake in messing up her relationship with dependable Dean for him. But now, when she can’t just turn to him and see that smile he always gave her, she feels slightly lost. 

Yet, the reaction of others to their break-up proves that she did the right thing. No one is surprised or expresses their sadness at how she and Jess aren’t together any more. Instead, there’s lots of talk about how he was never good enough for her and now she can meet a nice boy who will treat her better. She rails internally at how unfair everyone’s judgement of Jess is. He’s got such a good side to him, but it feels as if she’s the only one who can ever see it. However, she can’t help but look back on their relationship with some doubt. It isn’t that she had been hugely unhappy with Jess because she hadn’t been. Oh, he had made her angry several times and she’d been insecure at others, but he had made her happy, too. Yet, everyone tells her that he treated her badly so he must have. Right? 

Not even Lane is particularly sad, especially once she realises that Rory wouldn’t have been able to go to the Stars Hollow High prom because Jess didn’t graduate. When Lane tells her that, her heart sinks to the pit of her stomach and she finds herself worrying about him. Part of her is bitter, too. This was the one thing she had asked of him and he hadn’t even been able to do that. It’s another confirmation of how right she is to have broken up with him. 

However, Rory can’t help but wonder what he’s going to do. She wishes she could stop caring about him. It would make the aching void in her chest when she thinks of him disappear, but she can’t.  So she actually gets the guts up to go to the diner for the first time since they’ve broken up. She’s avoided even walking past it, which is a hard feat in a town as small as Stars Hollow. It’s involved a lot of circular routes, but she hasn’t felt up to actually seeing Jess. But with the news that he hasn’t graduated, she decides to go by and see if he needs any help. She doubts there’s anyone he can actually talk to about it. She bites her lip as she thinks of how that confrontation with Luke must have gone down. It won’t have been pretty. 

Jess isn’t around when she goes in and Luke is stomping around, slamming cups and plates about. He stops in surprise when he sees her. 

“Rory,” he says shocked. 

Embarrassed for the reason for her absence, she waves and says, “Hello.” 

“Come sit,” he says, a smile blooming on his face. “Want a coffee and danish?” 

“That would be good,” she replies, sliding onto a stool at the counter. 

She closes her eyes in appreciation when she takes a sip of Luke’s coffee. She’s been getting her fix at Weston’s and it’s not the same. Luke makes the best coffee and she’s missed it. 

“Looking forward to your graduation? That’s coming up isn’t it?” 

“Yeah, next week,” she says. Looking towards the curtain that separates the diner away from Luke’s apartment, she tries to find the courage to ask Luke about Jess. 

“He’s gone,” Luke says curtly, picking up on where she’s looking, and her gaze moves back towards him. He looks as uncomfortable as she feels. 

“What?” 

“He’s gone. Yesterday. Took most of his stuff and got on a bus, I guess.” 

“Oh,” Rory says, ripping part of her Danish off out of the need to do something with her hands. “I heard about him not graduating.”

 

Luke wipes angrily at the Formica surface. “Stupid kid. I should have known he didn’t have it under control, but he kept insisting that he did and then he comes home two nights ago all angry with me because I didn’t tell him his dad showed up-” 

“What?” Rory can’t help but interrupt. “His dad showed up?” 

“Yeah. I should have known the creep wouldn’t stay away when I told him to. I just didn’t want Jess to have to deal with that on top of-” 

He breaks off and red creeps up his neck in embarrassment at his slip up and she looks away, knowing that he’s referring to their break-up. 

“So his dad talked to him?” 

“Because apparently eighteen years after the birth is an acceptable time to turn up and announce who you are. And Jimmy can’t keep quiet about his conversation with me. No, he has to open his big mouth. And you know what Jess is like, all seething anger and sharp words. We had a blow up and then he drops that he didn’t graduate on me, outright refuses to go back to school next year, and so I told him he had to go.” 

There’s grief and guilt on Luke’s face and she knows how hurt he is at telling Jess that. How much of a failure he feels towards his nephew, that somehow Jess still didn’t graduate despite Luke’s attempts to almost will it into being. 

“I went straight to Principal Merton this morning, gave him a piece of my mind for not telling me that Jess was missing so much school. It’s too late of course, but it made me feel better.” 

Rory gives a little huff of amusement at that. Principal Merton and Stars Hollow High are just the latest in long line of schools that have failed Jess. But she’s glad that Luke gave them what for anyway. 

“Do you know where he went?” she asks in a small voice. 

Luke shrugs. “It’s Jess. He just packed and left. Not a word or a note. I didn’t even see him leave through the diner. Just went up to get something and noticed his things were gone.” 

There’s worry lurking in the back of Luke’s eyes that matches the knot of anxiety that sits heavy in her stomach. Yet, it’s pointless to worry about Jess. He’s the most equipped teen she knows to just go out into the world by himself. She couldn’t do it that is for sure. Yet, she can’t help but remember that he’s only eighteen and no one knows where he is. 

“He’ll be alright,” she says with faux confidence. 

“Yeah,” Luke replies but it lacks any conviction.


	2. 2013

_The_ _Stars Hollow Gazette_ is closing?

Rory couldn’t help but be struck how relevant that is to her life right now. 

The _ Gazette _ .

Her first experience of journalism when she had stumbled upon it aged four in the library and enjoyed the poem on the front. A Roald Dahl poem in honour of International Children’s Day. It had also been her first experience of having something she’d written in print – even if it had only been a letter to the editor. 

And now it is closing?

Looking around Miss Patty’s studio at the other people at the Town Meeting, she sees one or two people who look sad. Gypsy gets up and speaks about the poem and Babette seconds her. But there is no devastation on their faces as Taylor just throws his hands up and asks what he can do. It’s only her who is heartbroken by this revelation.

Perhaps it’s because it’s so close to home for her own situation. A feeling that her own life is closing up around her despite her own potential. It isn’t meant to be this way. She’s only twenty-eight and yet she is somehow back home and desperate to try and find her footing once more. She hasn’t felt this lost since the Yale debacle and that had set her back a whole year. A whole year she had wasted living at her grandparents, working for the D.A.R and partying with Logan. It had only been the crushing stagnation and seeing Paris go up into her senior year that had Rory back on track. It had been too long really and she knew it. 

But once she’d gone back, she’d thrown herself back into studying and moving forward with her dreams of becoming a journalist. She’d become Editor of the  _ Yale Daily News _ and graduated  _ cum laude _ and gone out into the world with all her hopes pinned on an exciting ambitious career.

It hadn’t quite happened like that. The economy tanked, she’d lost her job on the staff at  _ The Providence Journal _ and been freelancing ever since. At first she’d thrived. The freedom to write whatever and submit it freely to a wide range of publications had suited her. She hadn’t thought it would. She’d always needed security and future plans to keep her anxiety at bay, but somehow this was exciting without feeling out of control. 

Then it had begun to crash and burn, too. The thrill of doing whatever had paled and her writing had lost its spark and she’d started getting more rejections than acceptances. No longer was she sought out.

So she had come home and here she is now. Sitting once more in a Stars Hollow town meeting, eating red vines with her mom, and the  _ Gazette _ is closing. It’s not right or fair. 

Taylor’s about to move on when Rory jumps up. “You can’t close the  _ Gazette _ ,” she says loudly. “It’s an institution.”

“And just what would you have me do about it? Bernie Roundbottom has retired and moved away and no one else wants to take over.”

“I’ll do,” she says unexpectedly.

“You?” Taylor says a little insultingly. “Oh, I don’t know, Rory.”

She suppresses her urge to scowl and ask if him he’s being serious. “Why not?” she asks mildly. “I’m a journalist. I’ve worked and edited newspapers before.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Taylor says. “I can’t pay you much.”

“I’ll do it,” she emphasises firmly. “The pay doesn’t matter.”

He capitulates. “Come and see me tomorrow then. We’ll go over to the offices then.”

Nodding, Rory sits back down and feels a kernel of excitement blossom in her stomach. This isn’t exactly what she’d imagined when moving back, but it could still be good. This could be the boost that she needs.

\---------

Two months later, and she’s already ruing her decision. The _Gazette_ has proved to be a big headache. Mainly because no one is open to it changing in anyway. There must be a poem on the front and her attempt to change that had been met with widespread complaining. So she’s had to capitulate and put the poem back. The phone calls complaining have a least stopped now. Freelancing may have become stale, but she’s not sure taking on her local small town newspaper is the best idea either. There’s very little scope for her to branch out and write what she wants and every time she does, she’s met with resistance. People will moan when she writes something they don’t like or agree with. It sucks being an Editor who everyone can complain to in person while she’s eating breakfast at Luke’s. It’s beginning to feel like a poisoned chalice.

And then it definitely becomes one.

“Ah, Rory. Just the person I wanted to see,” Taylor says when she goes into Doose’s Market to grab a packet of chips to help while the afternoon away writing about Mrs Crowther winning the cabbage growing competition at the county fair.

“Hi Taylor, how can I help?”

“Well, I’ve thought of great feature for the next issue of the _ Gazette _ .”

_ Of course you have _ , Rory thinks bitterly. Every man and his dog has ideas for what she should write for the next issue. It’s becoming exhausting.

“Oh, what’s that?” She asks politely, swallowing down her desire to snap that it’s her paper and she’ll write what she goddamn pleases. This is technically her boss.

_ And what a boss! _ The angry part of her exclaims internally.

“I don’t know if Luke has told you but Jess Mariano is in town next week. It’s Doula’s birthday and he generally makes it up here for that. It would be a really great idea if you wrote a feature on him. An interview or something. You know the kind of thing. Small town man makes good.”

Jess is going to be  _ here _ ?!

Her mind blanks for a short second and she stares uncomprehendingly at Taylor while her brain shuts down anything other than mental screaming.

“You think I should get an interview with Jess?” she finally manages to ask.

“Yes,” Taylor replies beaming. “It would be a great coup for the _ Gazette _ don’t you think? He gives so few interviews but I’m sure he’ll do one for his hometown paper.”

She’s sure she should scoff at how Taylor is claiming Jess as Stars Hollow’s own. The boy that Taylor called a secret meeting about so he could attempt to run him out of town. But she’s still stuck on the idea that Jess was going to be here. It’s also laughable to call Jess a small town boy. He’s always been anything but. New York raised him and it had always been easy to tell. He hadn’t fit into Stars Hollow’s quaint ways, sticking out like a sore thumb with his bad attitude and annoyance at how proscriptive life was here.

“I’ll think about it,” she says distractedly.

“I’m sure he’ll say yes to you, my dear,” Taylor says encouragingly. “I’m sure he’ll want to oblige his old high school girlfriend.”

It’s only years of self-control that has Rory suppressing her hysterical laughter at that. Only those involved know why they broke up. To the rest of the town it had been a natural sequence of events because the Town Princess shouldn’t have been dating such a hoodlum in the first place. It was never meant to last.

It makes Taylor’s words about Jess even funnier now.

Rory manages to fire off a non-committal response before she’s back out of the door and all but sprinting to the quiet of the _ Gazette _ offices. Esther and Charlie are quiet and wrapped up in their own forty year old routines that never change, so they aren’t going to bother her as she quietly freaks out about this at her desk.

Slumping down in her chair and pulling one the week’s layout board towards her so it looks like she is working, she stares down at the jumble of words and adverts and unsuccessfully fails not to dwell on Jess Mariano.

It would be a lie to say that she hasn’t thought of him much over the past years because she has. In fact, it’s been hard to avoid him in the last five. At first, when she was at Yale, it was worry about him. She didn’t dare ask Luke if he was okay or what he was doing or even if Luke ever heard from him. But every time she came across a book that reminded her of him or heard Punk on the radio, she would think about him with a nagging anxiety that she hoped he was okay.

Then came the novel. It was one of those weird sensations that hits the literary world every now and again. The book everyone can’t stop talking about and suddenly Jess was everywhere. It had been a jolt really, even though she couldn’t have been more pleased. She loved that he’d found success and so unexpectedly, but it had been a horrible reminder that she’d ditched him because he seemed to be going nowhere and she’d been moving on to Yale. That it was a dead end relationship that couldn’t last because she was on the fast track to success and he wasn’t.

Now look at them.

Over the past years, Jess has gone from strength to strength. His books are critically lauded and he features on all the top young literary talent lists. There’s even talk of a movie deal for his second novel with all of Hollywood’s talent throwing their names into the hat, wanting to take on the complex characterisation he gives all his characters. And she’s back in Stars Hollow, working on a small town newspaper that she’s not allowed to change without receiving backlash. The irony is not lost on her.

- \--------

“So was anyone ever going to tell me that Jess comes back to Stars Hollow?” Rory asks her mom as they settle in for a movie and pizza night.

Luke is up visiting April at MIT for the weekend, so they are taking advantage of their girls only house time. 

“What?” her mom asks.

“Jess. Stars Hollow. Visits.”

“How did you hear about those?”

“Taylor thinks I should ask him for an interview when he’s in town next week.”

Lorelai peers at the date on her phone. “Oh wow! It’s that time of the year already?”

“Doula’s birthday, right?”

“Yeah,” her mom says with a grimace. “I don’t know. I never meant to hide it from you. It just didn’t come up and you were never around when he does come so I guess I never thought to tell you.”

“He comes every year then?”

“Yeah, sometimes more than that depending on, who knows, mood and schedule?”

Rory nodded contemplatively and then bit into a slice of pizza.

“Is his presence going to bother you?” her mom asks.

“Honestly?” she muses. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since I broke up with him.”

“He’s different. Not that I have much to do with him.”

“He doesn’t come over here.”

“I think Luke deliberately keeps him away. I mentioned one time about having him over for dinner or something and Luke floundered in a mass of panicky sentences. Maybe he thinks Jess and I would come to blows or something. You know what Luke’s like with his family. He gets all squirrely about them if he thinks I’m going to be judgemental.”

Family could be a sore point with Luke. It didn’t help that his family is pretty messed up. Liz and Jess are anyway. Well, Jess  _ was _ in any case. It is pretty obvious by now that Jess has turned his life around. The man’s a New York Times Bestseller author. The jury is still out on Liz, though. It probably always would be for Rory. She isn’t sure she could ever look at Liz and forget just how angry and scarred Jess was when she first met him

“But you’ve seen him?” Rory persists.

“Yeah, around. Popping in and out the diner mainly. Luke insists he stays there. I’ve heard their phone arguments about a hotel being a waste of money. I’ll tease Luke about how he’s depriving the Dragonfly of revenue. But he doesn’t really make his presence felt in the town. Slips in and out quietly.”

It’s weird to think of Jess doing anything quietly. Not that he’d ever been a loud person, he’s too introverted for that. Or he was. She thinks he probably still is. He shies away from publicity enough for her to think he still hates answering questions and being the focus of attention. Yet, his presence had always been there. She’d known immediately when Jess was in a room – he had that kind of electric personality that made you know he was there even if he was doing nothing other than sitting in the corner reading. From the interviews she’s read over the past couple of years, that’s still the case. Enough interviewers have spoken about it in any case.

“So Taylor’s dreams of some big newspaper coup with the ‘hometown boy’ are going to come to fruition,” she says sarcastically.

Lorelai laughs. “Is he really trying to claim Jess’ success for the town?”

Rory shoots her mom an unimpressed look. “Have you met Taylor? Of course he is. He thinks I’ll get Jess to agree to an interview because we used to date.”

“Oh boy,” her mom says.

“Yeah,” Rory says a little sadly. She hesitates for a moment before asking, “Has he ever said anything to you?”

“No. We exchange pleasantries and that’s it. He’s never asked about you or spoken about that time.”

She can’t fathom why but that crushes her. She hasn’t expected Jess to pine for her or anything, but that he never even asks her mom about her hurts. It shouldn’t but it does. Perhaps he never thinks of her at all. She wouldn’t necessarily blame him but she wants him to remember her with a little fondness. 

\-----------

Rory spends the next week quietly panicking at the prospect of seeing Jess again. She overhears Luke making plans with Jess on the phone and smiles a little to herself as Luke starts arguing about why Jess should stay above the diner and not at some hotel in Hartford or even the Dragonfly Inn. She bets Jess has this argument with Luke every time just to rile him up. Can imagine him smirking and saying, “Can’t have him resting on his laurels for too long.”

A small stab of pain lances through her chest at the thought and she shakes her head to dispel the image. Now is not the time to start dwelling over her regrets once more. She’s done that more than once over the past decade. She knows now that if she could go back then she would do things differently – and not because he’s become successful, but because she regrets allowing others to colour her view of their relationship. She’s always had a tendency to allow others’ opinions and expectations to sway her and none more so than in the case of Jess. She’d strung out her relationship with Dean because she knew everyone thought he was the better option. That ditching him for Jess would be a massive mistake. She’d allowed others to get in her head when they’d been dating and point out all the ways in which he didn’t match up to Dean. Finally, she’d allowed herself to be persuaded to dump him because the relationship couldn’t realistically go anywhere. Maybe they wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway, but she wouldn’t be filled with this regret regarding how they’d ended.

For the next three days, she stresses about going into the diner. Would he be there, leaning casually against the counter with a book in his hand? She considers going to Weston’s instead, but knows it will look funny. Plus her mom would get that knowing look in her eye and will want to talk about exactly why she’s skipping out on Luke’s.

Then Jess is in town. She hasn’t seen him, but hears about it everywhere she goes. It’s like before where it’s impossible to escape mention of him but this time it’s not mutters about how terrible he is. Instead, it’s praise for his success. Talk of how everyone knew he could do it. She suppresses her need to snap at everyone that they’d all thought he was on a one track road to jail and not fame as a renowned author. But there’s no point and she’s already receiving enough curious stares as if everyone else knows that it’s the first time they’ll have been in the same vicinity since he left Stars Hollow in 2003.

She hears about him for twenty-four hours but doesn’t catch sight of him despite having to go past the diner several times a day and going in for breakfast and lunch. However, it’s not the diner where she sees him first but Doose’s. 

Rounding the corner to the fresh fruit section, she stops suddenly as she sees Jess with a basket in hand. Memories of another time she’d seen him carry a basket flood back and she automatically steps back, unsure of how to deal with seeing him. At first, she’s tempted to flee before he notices her. She didn’t realise just how much it would hurt seeing him in the flesh. How her heart would constrict and her chest feel tight and painful and make it hard to breathe. Then curiosity overcomes her and she’s grateful that he has her back to her and she can study him without him noticing. Even from behind, he looks older than when she last saw him. His shoulders are broader and his shirt hugs them nicely showing off just how powerful they are. He’s filled out and from what she can see, it suits him.

“Rory!” 

She tenses up and spins around to see Doula come into sight, hands full of popcorn, chips and cookies. She knows it makes no sense but she can feel Jess’ eyes on her and she wants to shiver at how intense it feels.

“Doula,” she replies. “Stocking up?”

The fourteen year old grins and walks past her towards Jess. Rory follows, her eyes flicking up to where Jess is stood in silence.

_ He’s changed _ , is the first thought. Which isn’t surprisingly considering a decade has passed, but it takes her aback anyway. Gone is the crazy gelled hair and instead, he wears it short with the soft strands clinging to his head. He has a neatly trimmed beard, too, which she didn’t expect but suits him. His chest is wider and more muscled as his shoulders had promised and she manages to not let her eyes stray for too long on his arms, which are huge now. However, one thing hasn’t changed and that’s how inscrutable he can keep his face. There’s no spark of recollection in his eyes, instead he just looks blank. It hurts her more than it should.

“Mom’s on a health kick,” Doula says. “It’s all mung sprouts and meat substitutes. I’m going crazy. Luckily, my big brother turned up and offered to stock a secret food stash for me. Have you met my big brother?”

Rory’s eyes fly back to Jess and he looks at her briefly before he looks down at his sister with a soft smile. It reminds her of the one he used to give her and her heart thumps painfully at the realisation of how much she misses seeing it directed towards her. 

“You forget that I used to live here,” he says, ruffling his sister’s hair. Doula shoots him a filthy look and smooths it back down. It’s a reaction so similar to Jess that she has to smother a fond smile. “It was impossible to not know who the Town Princess was back then.”

Her stomach twists up at his words and she feels a little sick. She’s never been on the end of Jess’ barbs before and she hates how it feels. He’s teasingly mocked her before but it’s never been nasty. However, there’s no mistaking the slightly derisive tone he’s using now.

“Oh,” Doula says, frowning a little at Jess sardonic words, clearly unsure of what he is getting at. 

Clearing her throat, Rory says, “I’ll leave you to get back to stash shopping. Nice to see you again, Jess.”

She can only manage a weak smile before getting out of the shop as quickly as she can. 

Tears well up in her eyes as she speed walks back to the office and she tries to blink them away with her head bent so no one can see. She’s not going to cry over this. She’s not going to allow this meeting to upset her. It’s okay that he hates her. It really is. She might feel the same had she been dumped in the same circumstances. 

She gets back to the  _ Gazette _ office without the apples that she’d planned on buying and Esther gives her a quizzical look.

“They didn’t have the ones I wanted,” she says lamely.

Turning to her computer, she resolutely stares at it and types. It’s not until twenty minutes has passed that she looks at what she’s been typing and it’s just a random collection of words that makes no sense.

_ Damn you, Jess Mariano, _ she thinks.  _ Why did you have to come back now? _

\---------------

That inauspicious reconnection sets the tone for the rest of the day. After the stress of failing to bump into him for the first day he was here, Rory now cannot seem to avoid him. He’s everywhere she is all of a sudden and she hates having to catch so many glimpses of him. She definitely hates his careful politeness towards her. They’ll catch eyes and he’ll soberly nod his acknowledgement and walk on, leaving her to feel as if she’s been run over a ten ton truck. She doesn’t want to admit it, but she misses the little smiles he always had for her when they were teenagers. It had always felt as if there was a special connection there, a secret understanding that no one else got with him but her. It had made her feel special in a way that she realises she hasn’t since. Not even when she’d been the one to turn previous playboy Logan Huntzberger monogamous. 

She’s currently sitting in the Gazebo with Lane and watching as Jess strides confidently back towards the diner. He still has that swagger and she can’t help but track his movements.

“How weird is that?” Lane asks, tipping her take away cup of coffee in Jess’ direction.

“Too strange to properly digest,” she replies.

“You spoken to him at all?”

“Oh yeah. We bumped into each at Doose’s. It was as awkward as you are probably imagining.”

“What did he say?”

“He was with Doula, who tried to introduce us. He made some crack about how he already knew the Town Princess.”

Lane’s teeth audibly snap shut and she’s halfway off her feet before Rory grabs hold of her arm and pulls her back down. “Don’t go and fight him,” Rory says, tiredly.

“Why not? If he’s going to make dick comments about you, then I’m going to shout at him about it.”

“I kind of don’t blame him.”

“What? Why? He’s not the first person to ever be dumped so I don’t get why he’s being so precious about it.”

Rory pulls in a deep breath. She has never told Lane exactly why she broke up with Jess, just that she had. Lane hadn’t been surprised and hadn’t questioned why. She’d just thought, like the rest of the town, it was because Rory had realised she was too good for him. 

“I get why he’s bitter. I dumped him for kind of shitty reasons.”

Lane pauses, puts her cup down on the floor next to feet and shifts on the bench so that she’s sitting sideways and facing Rory. “What reasons?”

“I kind of let Mom and Grandma persuade me that it would be best to start my time at Yale as a single woman. That continuing to date Jess would just pull my focus away from settling into Yale and enjoying my time there to the full.”

“Ouch,” Lane says with a little grimace.

“Yeah,” she replies, looking down at her hands and twisting her fingers together. 

“And he knows?”

“Pretty much. Even down to how they played a part.”

“Wow.”

“It wasn’t my finest hour.”

“You regret it?” 

She nods and then explains, because it’s more complicated than that. “I regret the circumstances in which we broke up. I don’t think we would have lasted very long into Yale, if I’m honest with myself. But I regret that I allowed my mind to be swayed by others. Breaking up with him should have come solely from me. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be led in that direction.” Looking a little sadly in his direction, she adds, “And maybe we’d be on better terms now. Jess never did have patience with people who lacked conviction. He might have been drifting through life, but it was it always his choice to do so.”

“So you think he’s bitter because you were persuaded to break up with him rather than because you broke up with?”

“That’s what I’d be bitter about, too, if I was him.”

Lane looks pensive and picks her coffee back up. “I’m not sure there’s anything you can do about that. Other than just avoid him.”

With a slightly bitter laugh, Rory says, “I would but Taylor’s got it in his head that the _ Gazette _ should run an interview with Jess.”

Choking on a mouthful of coffee, Lane asks, “He what?!”

“Taylor’s all blown up with hometown pride over Jess. It doesn’t matter that Jess never considered Stars Hollow his home and only lived here for just under two years, now he’s successful, Taylor wants to claim him.”

“You have to admit, it’s kind of funny.”

Rory grins for what feel likes the first time that day. “It has its amusing points. Not the part where I’ve been unwillingly dragged into it, but otherwise it does.”

“Who’d have thought we’d see the day when Taylor got heart-eyes over Jess Mariano.”

“Not me. That’s for sure.”

\----------

The next morning, Rory decides to go to Weston’s for coffee instead. It isn’t the same as Luke’s, but she really doesn’t want the possibility of running into Jess. She spent too much of yesterday wrapped up in the past and second guessing decisions that had been made over a decade ago. She didn’t need another day like that. She needs to move on, accept the past and deal with the fact that Jess isn’t going to think kindly of her. She can do that.

_ Liar _ , the voice in her head says. 

It’s not wrong either. Rory’s always been a perfectionist who has worried about how people view her. She likes knowing that she’s left a good impression and that people like her. It’s why meeting Logan’s family all those years ago and realising that they didn’t see her as good enough for their heir had been such a shock. She had never been found lacking before. It’s why she had been so focused on being Dean’s friend once they broke up because she hadn’t wanted him to hate her. So it’s a shock to realise just how little Jess thinks of her. One that she doesn’t like.

“Stop it”, she hisses fiercely to herself. There is no point in continuing to dwell on him or his thoughts of her. It isn’t going to change anything.

Aggressively thinking about anything but Jess, she walks towards Weston’s. 

“Ah, Rory! There you are,” Taylor says, seemingly popping out of nowhere. “Not going to Luke’s?”

Startled, she puts her hand up to her chest and catches her breath a little. “No, I fancied a red velvet cupcake this morning,” she lies.

“I’m sure the cupcakes will be there in a little while. I’ve just seen that Jess is in the diner. Now would be the best time to speak to him about the interview.”

“Oh, I’m not sure…” Rory starts to say.

But as usual, Taylor bulldozes over her, grabs her arm and starts marching her towards the diner. This is precisely the thing she’d sought to avoid this morning.

“Oh good,” Taylor says oblivious. “He’s still there.”

Rory looks up towards where the diner is looming into view and she can see Jess sitting with Doula having breakfast. She wishes she had bit more of a backbone and could rip her arm out of Taylor’s grasp and hightail it in the other direction. But she’s had twenty-seven years’ experience of dealing with Taylor there is no escaping this confrontation so she might as well get it over and done with. 

“Jess, Doula, just the people I wanted to see,” Taylor booms once they are through the door. She can see Luke rolling his eyes behind the counter and she gives him a small wave.

If she wasn’t so involved in this situation, Rory would be able to laugh at the identical expressions of disgust and resignation that flit over the siblings faces.

“Taylor,” Jess intones in a monotone voice. Doula turns back to her breakfast and obviously tunes out.

“I wanted to run an idea past you,” Taylor said, getting a chair and pulling it up to their table. 

Rory continues to hover uncomfortably by the table, unwilling to lend her credence to this ambush of Jess. 

“Please do join us,” Jess says dryly and his eyes flick up to Rory briefly. 

“Great. I will,” Taylor says immune to Jess’ sarcasm. “Luke, a cup of coffee when you have a moment please.”

Knowing that she cannot continue to stand like a moron while everyone else is seated, Rory sits at an adjacent table. It’s close enough so it appears she’s involved in the conversation but she’s not imposing on Jess and Doula’s table. Luke comes over with two mugs of coffee and the coffee pot and pours them out. 

“French toast?” he asks Rory.

Now that she’s here, it seems stupid to not have anything to eat. She really didn’t want a cupcake for breakfast. She wants something more substantial. Plus, if she’s chewing then Taylor can’t expect her to talk too much and that suits her just fine.

Once everyone has coffee, Jess turns to Taylor and says, “So what can I do for you, Taylor?”

“Rory and I were thinking it would be great if, while you were in town, you gave an interview to the  _ Gazette.  _ You know, talk to your hometown newspaper.”

Rory takes a long sip of her coffee to avoid looking at his face, which she is sure is a picture.

“Give an interview,” Jess replies. “I don’t know, Taylor.”

“Come on, Jess. It would be a great way to repay Stars Hollow for taking you in when you were a teenager.”

She closes her eyes sure the explosion is coming soon. “Everything okay, Rory?” Luke asks, sliding her French toast in front of her.

Opening her eyes, she nods and smiles weakly. She wishes she could tune out this entire conversation.

“It would be a great coup for the paper, too,” Taylor continues. “Woodbury is always on about how their paper has a bigger circulation. As if that’s not because they have a larger population.”

“I don’t really do interviews when I don’t have to,” Jess says calmly. “I tend to only agree because my agent makes me.”

She sneaks a look at him out the corner of her eye. He has an amused expression on his face. She lets out a small sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t offended.

“But this is for Stars Hollow,” Taylor says earnestly. “I’m sure that means something to you.”

“Stop badgering the boy,” Luke calls out from across the diner. “He said no. Let him get on with his breakfast in peace.”

“I’m not badgering him,” Taylor snaps, his face going red. “I just don’t understand why he would say no.”

Rory’s eyes meet Jess’ for a moment in a brief moment of understanding. At least, he’s aware that she’s not actually part of this.

“I think you should do it,” Doula pipes up.

Her voice silences everyone else.

“You do?” Jess asks sceptically. 

“Yeah,” Doula says, stuffing her mouth with a huge forkful of pancakes.

“Why?”

“Because your sister has a good sense of town pride,” Taylor says as if it’s obvious and not seeing the look of horror on Doula’s face or the way Jess bites back a smile.

“I don’t know,” Doula says with a shrug after she’s swallowed. “It’d be kind of cool. Ashley was full of it the other week because her dumbass brother scored the winning touchdown for the football team and had a paragraph devoted to him in the  _ Gazette _ . She acted like it was the biggest deal in the whole world. You do this interview and I could shove it in her face that my brother is  _ actually _ famous unlike Brad.”

“So you want to use my career to best your friends?”

“Yeah,” she replies.

“Okay,” Jess says simply. “Alright, I’ll do it for Doula. But I’m only giving you half an hour.”

“Perfect,” Taylor says all smiles. He drains his cup of coffee, gets up, and adds, “Set it up with Rory. I’m sure she can work around your schedule easily enough.”

Rory glares at his departing back. Way to make her sound as if she does nothing all day.

“So when’s good for you?” Jess asks her and she turns her attention back to him.

“Let me just check my planner,” she says, pulling it out of her bag. She has it out of habit. Since she’s been working at the  _ Gazette _ it isn’t as if she actually needs it. “I can do today at 3pm or tomorrow at 10am.”

“Today would be good for me. I plan on leaving tonight.”

“Okay,” she says politely. “Come by the offices at 3pm.”

He nods and she breathes out a small breath when his eyes turn away back to his sister. She’s able to finish her French toast without looking at him again, which gives her some feeling of success.

\-----------

Rory doesn't feel too good a couple of hours later when she's taking a breather from the office and trying to get her rampant nerves under control. She's sitting on the closed side of the gazebo, resting her eyes and attempting to modulate her breathing to stave off the anxiety that has been bubbling so close to the surface all day, when she overhears Doula’s voice.

“What's with you and Rory?”

Rory bites her lip. She should probably get up and go. A decent person would leave right about now, but she's under no illusions about herself these days and she wants an insight into Jess’ emotions. He’s always been so hard to read and he’s kept a blank face around her the two times she's talked to him so far. It's unnerving just how little she can glean from him and so she's not going to squander this opportunity. 

“What do you mean?” Jess asks.

“You looked so angry when we met her in Doose’s yesterday and you acted like she was a mean girl or something when you were younger. But everyone always talks so well of Rory and she’s always so nice to me.”

There's a brief silence and the blood rushes in Rory’s ears so loudly that for a split second she freezes in worry that they will hear her. 

“Its nothing.”

“Don't give me that. I’m not stupid.”

Jess makes an irritated sound. “There’s some history between us but it's not a big deal.”

“Yeah, I’m going to believe that after she looked at you like you kicked her puppy yesterday and was obviously nervous around you this morning.”

Rory could kick herself for being so transparent. She thought she had gotten better at masking her emotions the older she got. But apparently not.

“We dated for a couple of months. Happy now?”

“So it didn't end well?”

“According to the town she came to her senses and broke up with me,” he said dismissively. “She was happy to listen to their opinions about me.”

Doula doesn't reply for a moment and then she says with conviction, “It hurt you that she listened to them.”

“I don't blame her for breaking up with me. I was a mess back then, but I wish it hadn't been because others told her to. The fact that she allowed herself to be persuaded to dump me isn't something I can respect.”

His words cut her to the bone. They encapsulate all her regrets and she knows he is ultimately right. If she broke up with him then it shouldn't have been because her grandma and mom thought she should go to Yale unattached. It should have been for other reasons. Ones that came from her rather than other people.

“I think she learnt from that experience,” Doula said thoughtfully. 

Jess scoffed. “How? You only just heard about it.”

“Doesn't mean I can't put things together. Not everyone is as oblivious as you.”

There's the sound of a brief scuffle and she's sure Jess has his sister in a headlock or something by the way Doula snaps, “Watch the hair!”

“So, O wise little sister, how do you know she learnt anything from this?”

“Just that she turned down that fancy Yale guy’s proposal.”

“What fancy Yale guy?”

“Her boyfriend through college. He was some rich perfect East Coast blue blood and proposed to her at her graduation party and she said no despite how much everyone wanted her to marry him.”

There was an amused snort from Jess. “You can't tell me that Lorelai wanted her to marry some wealthy kid from high society.”

“Well, the grandparents anyway,” Doula amended.

“How do you even know about this? You would have been what? Seven?”

“Emily brings it up at every family occasion. Apparently Rory has learnt too many lessons from Lorelai and doesn’t know a good man when he’s standing between her. How she turned down her opportunity to take her rightful Gilmore place in society and marry well.”

“It's still weird to me that there are family occasions you attend alongside Emily Gilmore.”

“They’re few and far between. But anyway, seems Rory didn't allow herself to be persuaded into a marriage with a suitable rich man.”

“Good. I’d be worried if she had.” 

It's the warmest she’d heard his voice when speaking about her, which was something at least. 

“Ugh,” Doula says. “I promised Mom I’d be home for lunch. It's quinoa.”

“Can't you just tell her how bad the social impact of quinoa going global is?”

Doula laughs. “And here I thought you’d be all about the quinoa. Isn't it the hipster food of choice?”

“Who says I’m a hipster?” He asks grumpily. “I don't buy into any of that crap. And I don't have a manbun.”

“I forgot. You’re an original hipster. The true essence of one,” Doula says mockingly. “And it's only a matter of time before you get a manbun. You have the beard and glasses already.”

“Those are reading glasses.”

“You sure they’re not just clear lens poseur glasses?”

“Shut up and go eat your weird quinoa salad.”

“If you're not careful, I’ll drag you with me.”

“Good luck getting me to eat Liz’s food.”

Their voices fade as they walk down the gazebo steps and away from Rory and she is left feeling vaguely dissatisfied about everything. She wishes Jess hadn't come back now and raked up all these unresolved emotions. She's been anxious enough without the leaden weight of regret over past relationships sitting heavily in her stomach.

\--------------

Rory is still feeling unnerved a couple of hours later. She's dwelt on Jess’ words since overhearing them and hasn't been able to shake them off. 

And then he’s there in the door frame, looking impossibly handsome in a dark blue button down. He shouldn't still make her heart beat fast, but he does. He’s always had that power. 

“So this is the  _ Gazette _ ?” He says and she notices that his face is more open than it's been since they broke up, which she welcomes.  Maybe he doesn't hate her as much as she feared he did. 

Rory smiles a little. “Yep.”

“Didn't think you’d end up being editor here.”

“It's not permanent,” she says. She feels compelled to qualify that, to let him know that she’s not settled down for life or anything. “But Taylor was going to close it and as I was already home, I thought I’d take it over for now.”

“It's going well?”

She can't help the grimace so doesn't bother trying to spin it as something it's not. “It's not ideal, but I’m working on some freelancing at the same time.”

“I saw a couple of pieces you wrote,” he says coming in and sitting in the chair opposite to hers across her desk.

“Really?” Rory asks surprised. 

Whilst she's followed his career she didn't think he would have looked out for hers.

“Yeah. They were good. You haven't lost your flair.”

It's kind of ridiculous just how much his words lifts her flagging journalist spirits. It's not as if she doesn't have others telling her that she writes well. No one has been more supportive than her mom and Luke has even put articles she's written on the back of his menus. But they have always told her how talented she is. Jess has no reason to prop her up or lie. If he says she's good then he means it. Plus he’s an actual writer. One who is successful, too, so his praise carries extra weight to it.

“Thanks,” she says simply but the warmth of his words linger in her chest. 

“How do you want to do this?” Jess asks.

“Taylor’s left the type of interview up to me-” she starts to say.

“Generous of him,” he interjects with a flash of his standard dry wit.

Rory finds herself grinning at that. She's always enjoyed Jess’ sense of humour even when it could be cruel. It's one of the things that had stood out to her when he arrived in Stars Hollow along with his love of books and how gorgeous he was. It also helps to dispel some of the anxiety that's been twisting up her insides.

“I was planning on a profile. Something short but meaty that allows for the time scale.”

“Okay then. Hit me with your questions.”

His face goes into a neutral expression but it's not the closed off cold one she's been subjected to since he arrived. It's one she recognises; a professional demeanour. It helps her swallow any lingering nerves and enter her own zone. 

The half an hour flies by and before Rory knows the alarm on her phone has gone off to signal the end of their time. She originally set it because she had been sure the time for the interview would crawl by, but no one can ever accuse Jess of being boring. That has never been one of his faults. Also, during the interview, they have fallen into the welcoming old habit of being able to talk about anything and everything and thanks to this, she has some great answers to her questions. The profile will be both engaging and interesting and something she can put in her portfolio as an excellent sample of her work. Then again, the chemistry between them had never been the problem. 

“Taylor won't be happy,” Jess says shaking his head.

“And why's that?”

“There wasn't one single question about Stars Hollow and how I owe everything to this town.”

She ducks her head in amusement. “Yeah, I’m not sure I could really get away with claiming that.”

“Oh, there's some truth to it,” he says more soberly. “Events here shaped me into the person I am today.”

There's an intense look in his eyes and Rory knows that he means her to a certain extent. 

“I’m happy you found success, Jess,” she says with sincerity.

“Are you?”

“I’ve always wished you well, you know that.”

“It's not always been apparent.”

“Well I have,” she says earnestly leaning forward and not liking that he would ever doubt that about her. That she had somehow botched their break-up a decade ago to the extent that he would even think that.

Jess nods but says nothing. However, she can tell that he's taken in her words and recognises them for the truth. 

“I better get going,” he says. “I go back to Philly tonight.”

“Thanks for the interview,” she says. “I know you don't give many.”

“You keep track?” he asks a little amused as if expecting her answer to be no.

“I keep up,” she says simply. 

He looks a little taken aback as if he hadn't expected her to. “It's been good seeing you,” he says and she cannot help but wonder if he's as surprised by his words as she is. 

Yet, if he is, he gives no sign of it. Just nods again and smiles at her before leaving the office. 

Rory stares after him. The interview has gone better than she’d hoped for but in a way that has left her with more questions than actual answers on a personal level. It's unsettling to see how easily they fall into old rhythms and a large part of her is sad that he’s leaving Stars Hollow soon. Who knew when she would next see him and the last thirty odd minutes have added a whole new layer of what ifs onto the ones she already had. 

\------------

The high pitched laughter gains Rory’s attention as she leaves the office an hour or so later and she smiles as she looks over to the steps of Stars Hollow High and sees that Doula and her friends are messing about and enjoying themselves. It seems like another lifetime since Rory had attended Stars Hollow High for one complete year before transferring over to Chilton a month into her Sophomore year, but she knows that she and Lane had never been boisterous like Doula and her friends are being now. Neither of them had been cool enough to hang out on the steps and amuse each other with stupid stunts. Not even for the brief period that Lane had been a cheerleader. 

There is a loud cheer from the steps and then a chant of “Again! Again!”

Rory looks back over and frowns a little when she sees Doula walking along the banister of the steps, grinning widely and looking over at her friends rather than concentrating on what she is doing. It’s a dangerous stunt and one that has Rory stopping to watch in concern.

The accident happens in horrifying slow motion. One minute, Doula is confidently walking the highest part of the rail and the next she is slipping, arms flailing redundantly as she crashes down the side of the wall into the flagged sidewalk. Time stops for a millisecond as Doula lies sprawled out on the stone like a discarded rag doll and a stunned silence pounds heavily in Rory’s ears.

Then everything speeds up horribly, the muted shock giving way to the screams of Doula’s friends and a panicked shout coming from across the square. Rory hears her own gasp before hurrying over. Once upon a time, she would have been useless in such a situation. She had been squeamish over the sight of blood and disliked any accidents that twisted limbs into unnatural positions. But she’d been sent on a foreign correspondence preparedness course when she’d first started at the  _ New Provincial Journal _ as she’d expressed a desire to go into overseas journalism. It had been a three day course that had been designed to give clueless young journalist hopefuls the basics in dealing with wartime. She’d learned basic first aid and been subjected to upsetting scenarios of being the first on the scene for all kinds of atrocities that were foreign to American eyes. It had cured her of her innate hatred of gore but also of her desire to be the next Christiane Amanpour as well. Yet, she has kept up the first aid, deeming it a useful skill and it comes  in handy now.

Rory gets to Doula at the same time as Jess and as she looks into his terrified eyes, she knows that he won’t be much help. His coolness has deserted him and she efficiently takes over, batting his hands away from his sister and calmly starting to assess Doula after directing the less hysterical of her friends to call 911. Luckily, she’s made it to Doula before any of her scared friends have been able to move her. There is the chance that her neck could be broken.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Jess snaps, the tone harsher than he probably realises.

She takes no offence, knowing that it is his fear talking. “Yes,” she replies serenely. “Well, not up to a medical standard or anything. You’d need Paris here for that. But I’m trained in first aid.”

“You?” he asks incredulously.

The disbelief should be insulting, but isn’t mainly because Jess has known her as a teenager and is probably thinking of the time he’d burnt himself on the deep fat fryer and she’d turned an alarming shade of green at his blistered skin.

“I know. Weird isn’t it,” she comments. “Now are you going to shut up and let me finish assessing your sister or not.”

Jess shuts up immediately, however his eyes don’t leave her for a moment. He tracks every movement she makes with an intensity only he can muster until she leans back with a sigh.

“Nothing appears to be broken,” she says in some relief. “Her neck definitely isn’t broken anyway.”

There is no lightening of his face, which she expects. She has never really imagined Jess as an older brother, despite Doula having existed for the entire time she’s known him. However, the past couple of days have been an eye opener in just how fiercely he loves his little sister, which comes as a surprise considering it was for Doula’s welfare that Jess had been sent to live in Stars Hollow in the first place. Liz and TJ had deemed him too wild to be around their daughter and she’d wondered over the years just how bitter that had made him. That Doula was given the care that he’d lacked so much during his own childhood. However, his terrified expression shows that if he holds any resentment then it isn’t towards his sister.

“The doctors will perform all the tests and scans necessary,” she says, putting her hand over his and squeezing. “They’ll take care of her.”

Jess looks her in the eyes. “She’ll be okay, won’t she?”

There is sheer vulnerability in his tone as if he won’t know what to do if she isn’t. Rory wishes that she’d undertaken a career in medicine just so she can reassure him with more confidence. Instead, she is left saying, “I’m not a doctor, Jess. I can’t make any promises. However, she hasn’t broken her neck.”

For a moment, she thinks he will snap at her again but he doesn’t. Instead, he musters a half smile and says, “Thanks for being here.”

Then the wail of the ambulance blares out and she can step back and watch as paramedics take over and rush both Doula and Jess away to the hospital.

\-----------

The sound of the front door clicking shut echoes loudly in the house and Rory hurries out from the kitchen where she has been waiting with as much patience as she can muster. 

Luke startles as she skids into the living room where he is wearily traipsing towards the stairs and bed. 

“Is she okay?” Rory asks in a scrambled rush.

“She regained consciousness an hour ago,” he says, rubbing a tired hand over his eyes. His skin has that kind of grey washed out quality to it and bags sit heavily under his eyes, weighing them down towards his cheeks.

“That’s good, right?”

“Yeah,” Luke replies with a sigh. “It’s good. But she needs to remain in hospital for the foreseeable future. Doctors are concerned that she was unconscious for so long and they want to run a load of tests. It’s still early days and they can’t really say how severe the head injury was.”

“But at least she’s awake.”

“There’s that. She was lucid enough to answer some questions, too, when I was there. Not sure the doctors were so impressed with her answers.”

That makes Rory grin a little as she imagines Doula’s snarky answers. It’s always weird for her just how similar she and Jess can be considering the fourteen year age gap between them and how Jess only lived with Doula for the first couple of years of her life.

“They’ll be releasing her from hospital in no time then.”

Luke smiles a little at that. “Yeah, I imagine so. She has a way with words that one.”

_ Like her brother _ are the unspoken words at the end of that sentence. 

Rory hesitates. Wanting to ask about Jess and how he is. She had never seen him as panicked as he had been when Doula lay unmoving on the floor and she hopes that he’s feeling a lot better now that Doula’s awake and in hospital. However, there’s an awkwardness to her asking about him to Luke. She’s never brought Jess up with him again after that day in the diner all those years ago when Jess had left. She’s not even sure what Luke thinks of their break-up or even how much Jess told him of her reasons. She suspects not very much because teenage Jess was never forthcoming with his emotions - not even to her which was half the problem. 

Gnawing at her lip, she ponders what to do as Luke waves his hand in the air as if to bid her goodnight and shambles towards the stairs and bed.

“And Jess?” she asks in a strangled tone, putting caution to the wind and just asking. “He’s okay.”

Luke stops his ascent up the stairs and turns back towards her with a curious look. “He’s fine. It’ll take a lot to shift him from Doula’s bedside, but he’s okay.”

Rory nods and gives Luke a weak little smile. There’s understanding in his eyes and she appreciates just how little Luke pushes. So many others - her mom included - would ask why she cares but Luke has never been like that. He’s always just accepted people’s questions and not prodded away for more information. It’s what she needs with her emotions about Jess swirling around her mind. She feels battered by just how emotional the past couple of days have been and she doesn’t think she would be able to put her feelings into coherent words. She barely understands them herself and explaining the cloud of regret that hangs over all her memories and encounters with Jess would be impossible really.

So instead she just wanders off to her own room to spend the night staring up at the ceiling replaying the past over and over again. It’s become a familiar theme recently.

\--- \-------

Two mornings later sees Rory sitting in her office editing over her interview with Jess. It’s a good piece as she always knew it would be. She thinks she could probably submit it to a larger publication and they would take it. There’s a warmth to the writing that makes it stand out. She refuses to dwell on why that is or the person who has inspired it. 

Jess is still in town. Doula and her accident has been the talk of the town over the past forty-eight hours and she knows from the gossip mill that he didn’t leave as scheduled and remains glued to his sister’s side in the hospital. Unsurprisingly, Babette, Miss Patty and East Side Tilly have more information on both Doula and Jess than even Luke, despite his daily trips to the hospital. Rory’s beginning to wonder if they have a paid mole in the hospital.

However, the gossip queens of Stars Hollow appear to have been sleeping this morning so Rory is taken by surprise when Jess knocks on the  _ Gazette _ door frame. 

“Hope I’m not interrupting,” he says.

She can’t help the smile that spreads over her face. It’s an involuntary reaction to the lack of hostility in his tone - although that has been missing at least the last few times they’ve interacted. He looks tired but still unfairly gorgeous. His hair is damp from a shower but his beard isn’t quite as trimmed as it has been. He also has glasses on and she cannot help but mentally agree with Doula that he looks like the consummate hipster. It shouldn’t be attractive but it really is on him. Perhaps it’s because it’s a completely unintentional vibe rather than studied one.

“You really do just need a manbun to complete the look,” she says unthinkingly before she remembers that she’d overheard that conversation.

His eyebrows draw together. “Excuse me?”

“It’s nothing. You just look like you’ve stepped out of a magazine article on the hipster phenomenon.

To her surprise, it draws a bark of laughter out of Jess. “Have you been talking to Doula? That’s her favourite thing to level at me.”

A little relieved that she hasn’t offended him, Rory allows the smile on her face to grow. “Nope. Guess that means you’re a hipster.”

“Really?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow. His familiar teasing pose warms her chest. She has missed this. 

“Yep. Consummate hipster in fact!”

The little smile appears on his lips and sends her heart into overdrive.

“You can come in and sit down, you know. You don’t have to lurk in the doorway,” she follows up. 

“I wasn’t sure how busy you’d be,” Jess says coming into the office and sitting in the chair opposite. 

“I’m working on your profile, actually.”

“Yeah.”

“Want to see?”

“How vitriolic are you?”

“The world of small town journalism is a cutthroat place,” she teases. “You’re just the latest in a long line of victims.” 

“So this is going to trash my career, then. I knew there had to be a catch to Taylor wanting this.”

Even though he’s just joining in the joke, she breathes out a mental sigh of relief that he’d said Taylor and not her. That he knows she wouldn’t want to harm him in anyway and although he might be bitter towards her reasons for breaking up with a decade ago, he doesn’t hate her. It means everything to Rory and her body instantly feels lighter at the realisation. 

“Want to read it?”

“Won’t that impugn your journalistic integrity?”

Rory gives him a dry look. “It’s for the  _ Stars Hollow Gazette _ , I’m not sure there’s any integrity to impugn.”

Jess smirks a little at that. “It’s good that you took this job over though.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Luke told me that Taylor was going to close the paper down. Small town journalism might not be at the cutting edge of the industry but how many high profile journalists gained their love of journalism from their local papers? I bet it’s a good few.”

“You’re right. The  _ Gazette _ was my own introduction to newspapers. Not sure I want to stay here long-term.”

“Good. I’d be worried for you if you did.”

“So you want to read?” she asks, gesturing at her monitor. Jess rises from his seat again and comes around to her side of the desk, leaning a little over her so he can read the screen. It’s at times like this that she likes having a desktop computer as it gives her an excuse to be next to him. She manages not to close her eyes at just how near he is to her. She can smell the dab of cologne he’s wearing and feel the heat of his arm as he rests it close to her own. She has the urge to lean into him to see how much his muscle bulk has changed how he feels against her and just about manages to stifle the urge. It’s a close run thing though when he shifts a little and his forearm brushes her hand. Her fingers twitch and tingle from the minuscule touch and she aches to inch them forward and linger over his skin. She wants to trail them up his arm until she can caress her hand over his shoulder and around his neck to pull him down towards her until their lips touch. Then she would trace her tongue along the seam of his mouth and demand entry in the way she’d always wanted to as teenagers, but been too nervous to do, and deepen the kiss into something hot and wet that would have them straining against each other.

Jess clears his throat and Rory startles out of her daydream, resisting the urge to touch her fingers to her lips to chase the phantom feel of his mouth against hers.

“It’s good,” he says a little gruffly. “Not sure I’ve ever had a profile that just gets to the heart of me the way this does.”

Colour rushes readily into her cheeks as much from her fantasy of them kissing as his words. However, she’s glad to have the cover of his praise to explain their redness away. “You like it?” she asks a little unsure.

“You’ve always had the ability to make the most uninteresting of subjects fascinating to read.”

“I wouldn’t call you uninteresting.”

Their eyes catch and it’s as intense as ever. Perhaps it’s because she’s just imagined kissing him once more or maybe it’s because there will always be this chemistry between them. One that screams about what-ifs and potential. One that makes her wonder just what would happen if she rose a little and closed the gap between their faces.

Then Jess is shaking his head, straightening up and stepping back from her.

“Er...well, I dropped in to give you an update on Doula,” he says a little flustered.

Rory tamps down her disappointment at an opportunity missed and asks, “How’s she doing? Luke fills me every night, but you know Luke. It’s bare minimum at all times.”

Jess’ cool exterior has returned along with the desk in between them and she tries not to dwell on what might have been had she been just a tad bolder. Now is not a good time to even contemplate going down such a path. She’s not sure it would ever be a good time to attempt that. Just because she’s apparently still hung up on him, it doesn’t mean he is. In fact, she would be surprised if he is.

“She’s good. Chafing at having to remain in the hospital, but the doctors want to make sure there’s zero possibility of a complication before they release her.”

“So she could be out soon?”

“Yeah, there’s talk of the weekend.”

“That’s good.”

“Also, I wanted to thank you. You know for being there on the day. Her doctor said that if she’d been moved around after the accident then it could have resulted in some bleeding on the brain and I’m pretty sure I would have snatched her up if you hadn’t been there. And if I hadn’t then one of her friends definitely would,” Jess says with warm sincerity in his tone and on his face.

“I’m just glad I could help. Even the slightest.”

Jess rises from his chair. “Anyway, I better get back. I was ordered away to have a shower and come back with some of Luke’s pancakes.”

“Thanks for dropping by with an update,” she says and deliberately turns back towards her screen. She wants nothing more than to watch him leave but it’s not healthy for her sanity to do that so she forces herself to concentrate on looking as if she’s working.

Rory misses the lingering look Jess gives her as he leaves.

\---------

“That’s some quality writing, kid,” Lorelai says admiringly. “I almost like Jess,”

Luke sends her a glare and she quickly puts her hands up with a small wink to Rory. “Just joking. Jess is a delight all round these days.”

“It’s good,” Luke says gruffly. “It feels like him. The few of those big newspaper interviews he’s done have felt kind of stilted.”

“Thanks,” she says simply.

Once Luke has gone, Lorelai leans over the table and says conspiratorily, “How long before it’s on the back of the menu?”

“Hush.”

“It’s an article written by one of his favourite about another of his favourite people. You could do an interview with the Pope or Barack Obama or the Pope  _ and _ Obama and it wouldn’t trump this for Luke.”

“It  _ is  _ good, right?” 

“One of your best,” her mom says. “I don’t think I’ve ever understand Jess as well as I do having read this. Mind you, I’m not sure I actually want to understand Jess this well but…”

Rory rolls her eyes and then stiffens as the curtain to the apartment is pulled aside and Jess is there. She doesn’t want to be this aware of him, but she is. It’s like a return to when she was seventeen and infatuated with him but desperate not to be; only now it’s worse because she knows what his kisses are like and he’s fulfilled all the potential he showed.

Lorelai’s keen eyes don’t miss the way she stares at him. Or the small smile and nod he gives her as he exits the diner. Her mom looks thoughtful and Rory is grateful when she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t think she’s up to dealing with Lorelai dissecting their interactions or her feelings right now. She’s having a hard enough time trying to suppress everything as it is.

Looking down at the time, Rory smooths over the grainy black and white image of Jess and is torn. She likes being able to talk to him again and the rhythm they’ve fallen back into, but she knows that it’s going to be harder for her to forget about him in the long run. 

\------------------

The next couple of days fall into a steady routine. Jess spends most of his time at the hospital, but the little time he does spend in Stars Hollow, he seeks her out. Ostensibly to give her an update, but he always ends up staying to chat and soon he’s dropping a book on her desk.

“What’s that?” Rory asks.

He rolls his eyes. “A book. I just finished it last night and thought you’d like to borrow it. After all, you were practically trying to read it over my shoulder yesterday.”

“Was not.” Jess gives her an unimpressed look so she adds, “Okay, so I was trying to get a feel for if it’s as good as everyone says it is.”

“It is.”

“And I definitely can borrow it?”

“No, I thought I’d say you could and then snatch it out of your hands when you picked up and yell, ‘Psych’ in your face.”

Rory narrows her eyes in his direction, but picks the book up anyway and flicks through it. There’s notes littering the margin and she cannot help but smile at the sight of them.

“What’s the smile for?”

“You still write in the margins.”

He reddens a little as if he’s self conscious about it. “Yeah, sorry about that. Matt refuses to borrow anything from me because I do that.”

“Matt?”

“My business partner down in Philly.”

“Business partner?”

“Yeah, I help run an independent publishing house.”

Rory frowns. In all the interviews she’s ever read of his, there’s been no mention of a publishing house. “I didn’t know you were involved in publishing.”

“Yeah,” he says a little sheepishly. “I don’t ever mention it when doing book publicity because linking my name to it will give us the kind of attention we seek to avoid, but Matt and Chris, the guys I work with, published  _ The Subsect _ first.”

“Really?”

“It was a small run, like five hundred copies only, but it’s what got my book and my name out there. Someone from a larger publishing firm read the book, wanted to mainstream publish, something we didn’t have the capacity to do at Truncheon and bought the rights of the book for a second publication run.”

“You really are a busy bee in the world of writing then.”

Jess grins. “You can say I found my niche. I get to read manuscripts all day when I’m not writing. It’s amazing.”

She’s fascinated by this other side to him and leans forward onto her desk and asks, “So Truncheon is committed to being small and independent then?”

“Yep.”

“You really are a hipster. Even your publishing company is hipster.”

He glares at her and she grins beatifically back at him until he crumples up a post it note on her desk and throws it at her.

“Hey! That could have been something important.”

“It was a doodle.”

“So this Matt isn’t enlightened by your comments in margins then?” she says.

“Nope. Claims that my opinions are trite and I desecrate the sacred books with them.”

It’s one of those funny things about Jess; for someone who loves books so much, he’s not precious about them. He’ll write in them, dog ear pages, roll them up and stuff them in his back pocket. He’s the only person she’s ever met who loves books as much as he does but yet doesn’t treasure keeping them prestine. She’d asked him about it once and he’d shrugged and said that books were for consummation, not to be kept neat and tidy on a shelf. She wonders if this is why he likes battered second hand copies so much because then he can feel how much the book has been read and loved.

“I always liked your notes.”

“I know,” he says simply before he gets up once more and disappears out of the door with a wave.

She decides to take a break, grabs a bag of red vines out of her drawer and rips open the packet with her mouth, her hands already eagerly flipping through the pages in her desire to start reading and see what thoughts he has on this book. It’s been too long since she’s been able to do that.

\-----------

The next morning sees Doula released from hospital. She bounces into the diner with all the spring of someone who’s been away for a refreshing vacation rather than someone who’s been in hospital with a serious head injury and Rory notices how both Luke and Jess wince behind her as she flings open the door.

“Ah, the smell of coffee and burgers - oh how I’ve missed you.”

“No caffeine,” Luke snaps grumpily as he steers around her and heads behind the counter. “Doctor’s orders.”

“What?!” gasps Lorelai from where she and Rory are digging into eggs.

“Yeah, I’m not allowed caffeine for another week,” Doula confirms miserably.

“Oh my poor child,” Lorelai says and pats the table invitingly. “Come and tell me all about this deprivation.”

Rory smiles and waves a hand in greeting to Jess, who is about to slink off upstairs when Doula says, “Hey, Jess, where are you going? You promised me pancakes!”

“Yeah, and Luke has already started making them for you.”

“But I want you to keep my company when I eat them.”

Doula makes her brown eyes ridiculously large and pouts pathetically up at her big brother, who sighs and pulls out the fourth chair at their table.

He nods a little stiffly at Lorelai and Rory cannot help but wonder if he’s thinking about the role her mom played in their break up. Wanting nothing more than to dispel the awkward atmosphere that has descended, Rory pulls a book out of her bag. “Here,” she says sliding it across the table towards him.

He picks it up and studies it. “Elizabeth Gaskell?” he says, his nose wrinkling up.

“You’ll like it,” she says. 

“Victorian mores and manners are not really my thing. Plus, I found Dickens really dull and the Bronte heroes are creeps.”

“Which is why you’ll like  _ Ruth _ . It deals with seduction, illegitimacy and sin. It was burnt by members of Gaskell’s own congregation. It was scandalous. Plus, Gaskell writes a lot about the working class. That should be more up your street than Mr Rochester.”

He purses his lips and contemplates the novel.

“Just give it ago. I promise you that Gaskell will be your favourite and that’s without meeting Nicholas Higgins.”

“Alright. I’ll trust you but if you’re wrong then I get to choose the next three books that you read.”

“Let me guess, Hemingway followed by Hemingway followed by even more Hemingway.”

He laughs at that and Rory can feel her mom staring at them both in shock.

“I’ll be nicer than that.”

“You better,” she says, waving her fork menacingly in his direction.

“What book is that?” Doula asks, leaning over her brother’s shoulder and then grabbing it out of his hand.

“Hey, no snatching!”  Jess says grumpily.

“Hmm...I distinctly remember saying that to you on more than one occasion,” Luke says as he comes over with their pancakes. 

There’s an extra plate for Lorelai, which has her exclaiming, “My hero!” in her favourite southern accent and leaning up to kiss him.

“There was more than one occasion when you read?” Jess asks like the smartass he is.

Luke doesn’t reply and just cuffs his nephew around the ear as he disappears off.

“Oooh Gaskell,” Doula says, ignoring the byplay around her. “I just finished North and South. John Thornton is so swoon-worthy.”

“Have you seen the adaptation?” Lorelai asks, perking up. “Richard Armitage is so sexy.”

Doula leans forward. “No! It’s worth watching then?”

“Oh yeah,” Lorelai says.

Rory can’t help but giggle at the revolted expression on Jess’ face as he rises out of his seat, grabs his plate and the book and says, “I think you have more than enough company here, Doula. I’m going upstairs.”

“Was it something we said?” Lorelai asks innocently once Jess has gone.

Doula rolls her eyes and digs into her pancakes. “He’s probably reached his quota for talking to people for the day. Enough about my brother,” she says with a speculative look at Rory and continues, “Tell me more about this adaptation.”

Once breakfast is finished, Lorelai walks Rory over to the offices. She claims it’s to see what poem they are putting on the front this week, but Rory isn’t fooled. Her mom wants to talk about Jess.

“So you and Jess seemed pretty friendly back there. What happened to being anxious about him being here.”

“I don’t know,” she says with a shrug. “We’ve spent some time together over this past week and have moved on from the past I guess.”

“Moved on,” Lorelai says contemplatively.

Rory goes for a studied nonchalance that she doesn’t necessarily feel when it comes to Jess. “Yeah.”

“Hmm.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

Stopping, Rory heaves an exasperated sigh. Lorelai never means nothing and certainly not in cases like this. “Come on, Mom, spit it out.”

“Just be careful.”

“Careful?”

Lorelai gives her a knowing look. “There’s always been something about Jess that has clung onto a small corner of your heart. I know it and you know it no matter how much we don’t talk about it. I just don’t want to see you get hurt falling for him again. You lit up back there in the diner when he sat down. And Esther’s been mouthing off about how he drops by the  _ Gazette _ every day and how happy you look to see him. Just guard you heart, kid.”

They are not really words that she wants to hear and part of her shies away from them almost as if she can pretend they were never uttered. But they were and they also play into worries she has in the middle of the night: that she’s as much in love with Jess now as she ever was.

It doesn’t help how much time they’ve spent over the past week or so. It reminds her of everything that was good between them and neither of them is the same as they were a decade ago. Jess is in a much better place; happy and healthy in a way he never had been when living in Stars Hollow. And she has learnt not to worry so much about what others think. Yet, neither of them can erase the past and she doubts Jess would ever want to go back. When she broke up with because her family persuaded her to, she severed his respect for her and she isn’t sure it’s something she could ever regain.

Sorrow washes through her and her whole body wants to droop, but she not going to do that. She’s always known deep down that her feelings for Jess have never gone away no matter how much she pushed that knowledge into the deepest, darkest corner of her brain. Yet, she cannot allow herself to hope that it’s the same for him. There’s no indication that it  _ is _ the same for him and so she needs to get over it and accept that a vague fond friendship is all they are never going to have.

“I know where we stand, mom, and what’s realistic and what isn’t. It’s just nice to be able to talk to him without any bitterness between us.”

“Okay, well that’s good to know.”

Rory sums up a weak smile for Lorelai and a minute or so later, they’re at the  _ Gazette  _ offices. It’s a relief to escape into musty silence that enveloped the local newspaper. 

\--------

“Ace, how are you?” 

“Logan?” Rory says pressing her cell closer to her ear. “Are you on the East Coast?”

“I am, Ace, I am. I was calling to see if you wanted to get dinner with me tonight.”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

“Perfect. I’ll come and pick you up at 7pm. That suit you?”

“Sure. I’m looking forward to it.”

Putting the phone down, Rory smiles. Logan tends to have that effect on her. While she doesn’t regret turning down his proposal of marriage, she still retains a measure of fondness for him. Ultimately, his lifestyle isn’t for her. All the partying and silly stunts and having no idea about how people outside the one percent live had been fun for a while, but it had been escapism at it’s finest. She is privileged compared to a lot of others, something she’s become more aware of the older she gets, but she’s nothing compared to Logan and his friends. They live in a bubble of wealth and even cutting ties with his father had done nothing to dent that for Logan. He still has his trust fund, his name and his grandfather who slips him a million or so a year for the posterity of the Huntzberger heir. She is sure Mitchum probably knows about it and secretly approves. She’s sure they are hoping to lure Logan back at some point - much like the Haydens did with her dad.

Grabbing her jacket, she decides to call it a day and makes her way to the diner. As she hopes for, Jess is inside, sitting at the counter.

“Hey,” she says sliding onto the stool next to him.

“Hi,” he says a little distracted.

“What you reading?” she asks and he helpfully tips the book up so she can see the cover. “ _ North and South _ ? So you did like _ Ruth _ ?”

“Don’t look so smug.”

“I’m not,” she says, trying and failing to hide her grin. She nods at Luke as he passes her a cup of coffee and a donut.

“Yeah, so  _ not _ smug.”

“So what do you think? I called it with Gaskell, right?”

“I’ll admit I like her a lot more than Dickens or the Bronte sisters.”

“I knew all that working class mill action would get you. How you finding  _ North and South _ though? It’s a little more formulaic than  _ Ruth _ .”

“Doula warned me but then she also threatened to tie me to a chair and make me watch the adaptation if I didn’t give it a go.”

“Before reading the book?” Rory says aghast. 

“She fights dirty like that.”

“Enjoying it?”

“Surprisingly, I really like Margaret Hale.”

Rory raises her eyebrows up. “Really?”

“Yeah, she’s idealistic and naive, but it’s pretty endearing and she has a lot of convictions.”

Turning her eyes down, she rips a piece of the glazed donut off and rolls it between her fingers focusing on how sticky it feels rather than the stab of pain that shoots through her chest at his words. She’s sure it’s not a pointed dig at her and her lack of conviction ten years ago, but it feels like it anyway.

“She’s pretty spunky in a weird way,” Rory comments quietly.

“I like that about her. She doesn’t let Thornton off the hook even if she doesn’t understand the situation.”

Rory’s saved from having to try and answer by the buzz on Jess’ phone. He looks at the number and groans. “Sorry, I have to take this,” he says and disappears behind the curtain.

Continuing to destroy the donut as she thinks on Jess’ words, Rory doesn’t hear Luke come over until the plate is whipped out from under her hand. 

“I never thought I’d see the day when a Gilmore girl plays with her food rather than eats it.”

“Don’t tell mom. She’ll have me arrested for crimes against donuts.”

“Everything okay?” Luke asks, concern lacing his tone.

“Yeah,” she says off hand. “Just thinking about this week’s edition that’s all.”

Luke gives her a kindly smile and goes to serve the person waiting by the cash register. 

Rory takes a sip of her coffee for something to do now the donut has been rescued. She wishes that a few words from Jess didn’t have the ability to change her entire mood, but they do. She wonders if she’ll always be sensitive to any innocent remarks he makes regarding strength of character or if it will go away if she’s finally able to completely move on from him. Then again, he’s probably leaving town again soon. Doula’s finally been cleared to go back to school and drink coffee and she doubts he’ll be sticking around forever. The realisation that they’ll go back to not talking hits her and she hastily puts the mug down when her hands begin to shake. She’ll miss him. She’s felt more alive than she has for years in the past couple of weeks and it’s what Jess brings. He always has.

“Sorry about that,” he says, reemerging into the diner.

“Everything okay?” she asks in a light tone that she doesn’t feel.

“Matt and Chris complaining about how long I’ve been away.”

Her heart sinks into her stomach. Here it is. The moment she’s been dreading and putting off thinking about. 

“You have to go back to Philly?”

“Well, yeah, at some point. But not actually yet. I’ve been writing here.”

“Yeah?” she says, excited.

He huffs out a small laugh. “It’s not that amazing.”

“It is! I love your books.”

“You love all books.”

“Nope! Not Hemingway. Thank goodness you don’t write like Hemingway. I’d be so disappointed if I had to hate your books, Jess.”

He grins. “If I ever wrote like Hemingway I could die a happy man.  _ Anyway _ , my publishing partners, knowing how important flow is to me, have decided to pay a visit to me here.”

“They’re coming to Stars Hollow?”

“Yep,” he says with a groan. “Ostensibly to give me a manuscript that apparently they cannot email to me, but really it’s to check out the town. Doula sent them a copy of your profile and they’ve been intrigued about why I gave an interview to the small town newspaper here.”

“So you’ll take them into Doose’s to meet Taylor and mystery solved.”

“Something like that,” he says.

\--------

“It’s like a convention for your ex-boyfriends,” Lorelai says as she watches Rory finish getting ready.

Rory jolts at the thought of Logan and Jess being compared. They represent such different things in her life that she's never thought to do that. Despite the longer relationship and the proposal of marriage, Logan has never been as serious as Jess in her mind. Which is crazy really. Jess was a short teenage relationship whereas she  _ lived _ with Logan. Yet there had always been something so epic about her and Jess, something about how they meshed that had promised so much. Logan had never been that no matter how eminently suitable he’d been. 

“Yeah, I guess,” she says distractedly.

“Are they going to enliven the town by coming to blows? Jess and Dean were always so good for that.”

“Mom,” she chides. “Neither of them are dating me.”

“But maybe you want to date them,” her mom says teasingly.

“Not Logan,” Rory says unthinkingly before she realises just how she's given herself away.

Lorelai looks at her sadly and says, “Oh, honey.”

“It's fine. It's water under the bridge now.”

“Is it?”

“It has to be,” she says a little fiercely. “I made a choice ten years ago and I can't go back and change that.”

Her mom says nothing and Rory knows it's because there's nothing to say. It's pretty obvious to the pair of them by now that her feelings are still engaged, but that Jess has made no indication of thinking of her like that. She has to just deal with it because wishing for something isn’t going to make it happen. 

There was a beep outside. 

“That will be Logan,” she says, checks her hair and makeup in the mirror one last time before grabbing her bag off her desk. 

“Tell him I said hi,” Lorelai says. 

Rory smiles at her mom and ignores the slightly sad expression still on Lorelai’s face. She knows her mom carries some guilt for her role in pushing Rory to break up with Jess all those years ago, but it is Rory's conduct that has scuppered any future chance with Jess. Allowing herself to be persuaded was a mistake and one she is still living with now.

“It will be fine,” she says, kissing her mom on the cheek.

“Shouldn't I be the one telling  _ you _ that.”

“We never were normal.”

“No, kid, we weren’t.”

When Rory gets outside, Logan is leaning against a Porsche. He looks the same as when she last saw him, charming and handsome but it stirs nothing in her. Her mind is taken up instead by dark brooding intensity. 

“Are you allowed to drive any other make of car or would that be illegal?”

“Hello to you, too, Ace,” Logan says with his toothy grin. 

She walks over, leans up to kiss him on his cheek and hugs him. “It's good to see you, Logan. How's sunny California treating you?”

“It's no fun without you,” he pouts.

“Oh, I’m sure Finn and Colin would have something to say about that.”

“You should come live on the West Coast. You’d like it and I’m sure I could find you a place on the  _ Chronicle _ or the  _ Examiner  _ or the  _ Bay Guardian _ or something.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah cos nothing says Rory Gilmore like year round sun and health fitness freaks.”

“You do like avocados though and my tree is as amazing as I said it would be.”

“The avocado tree is the most appealing thing about your whole pitch - other than you of course.”

“Of course,” he says mock seriously and then grins.

He opens the car door for her and as she slides in her eye catches on what looks like a figure at the bottom of the driveway. Squinting, she peers into the dark but can't make out if it is or not and when Logan drives past, there's nothing there. 

\------------

It’s not until the following Monday when Rory sees Jess again. She’s looked out for him in the diner and around, but has caught no sign of him. Then when she goes into Luke’s to get breakfast on Monday, he’s there with two other guys. It’s the first time she’s ever seen him with friends and she pauses on the threshold for a moment or two and observes. He’s relaxed she realises with a little shock. How tense teenage Jess got in social situations has stuck in her memory so it’s strange to see him so laidback around others. The tall black guy is saying something that makes Jess laugh but the other white guy frown.

Rory comes fully into the diner and the ringing bell makes the three of them look up. She has an automatic smile and wave for Jess and is surprised when the smile she gets back is minimal.

“Hey,” she says a little confused. “I haven’t seen you around for a couple of days.”

“Yeah, I’ve been writing,” he replies, with a coolness in his voice she hasn’t heard since she first saw him again a couple of weeks past.

“Going well?” she asks, her bemusement at his attitude growing with each passing second. She thought they had moved beyond this, but maybe they haven’t especially as she hasn’t actually done anything to cause him to react like that.

“Not bad,” he says curtly and his black friend elbows him in the side. Jess shoots him an annoyed glare but then says. “Rory, these are my business partners, Chris,” he says pointing to the black guy. “And Matt.” He points to the white guy.

“Business partners?” Matt says. 

“You’re such an ass, Jess,” Chris chimes in. “I thought we meant more to you than that.”

“Fine,” Jess grumbles. “Rory, meet my  _ friends _ , Matt and Chris.”

Rory gives them both a welcoming smile. “Nice to meet you.”

From the curious way they both look at her, she bets that they know she’s Jess’ ex-girlfriend. Then Chris puts out his hand and says, “You too, Rory.” 

An awkward pause develops between the four of them and Rory says, “So, I’m going to go grab some coffee and food before work. Hope you have a good time in Stars Hollow.”

She sits down at the counter and it takes all her willpower not to stare at Jess and figure out just what his problem is. Instead, she pulls out her book, wincing when she realises it’s the one Jess has leant her with his notes in it. She’s not really in the mood to read his musings on Orhan Pamuk so she puts it back in the bag and pulls out the small pocket book of John Donne poetry. Something classic might soothe how confused she is right now.

It’s not until she’s almost finished with her French Toast and is engrossed in the poems when she feels someone sit down next to her. She looks up and sees that it’s Chris. She briefly looks around the diner but there’s no sign of Jess or Matt.

“Jess is taking a call and Matt’s gone to find a ceramic unicorn for his sister. She collects them,” Chris says before he adds to clarify, “Unicorns.”.

She snorts. “Well, he’s come to the right town for that.”

“That’s what Jess said. Are there really twelve stores selling ceramic unicorns.”

“Yep!”

“I’m not sure we’ll ever see Matt again. His sister will insist that he scours each and every store for the right one for her choose.”

“Kind of makes me glad that my sister’s much younger than me and lives in Paris.”

“Yeah,” Chris says and then he looks over at her book with interest. “What you reading?”

“John Donne poems,” she says, showing him the cover.

He grimaces. “Old English poetry.”

“Not a fan,” she asks, amused.

“Nope. Not really a fan of poetry full stop. There’s a reason Matt has to deal with all the poets at Truncheon. But if I am going to read poetry then I prefer it to be modern and political.”

“You’re missing out.”

“On old white men pining away in love? I don’t think so.”

“You don’t like love poetry?”

“I think it’s fair to say that. Especially when it’s written by old white men.”

“I’m sensing a theme going on here.”

“That old white dead poets are not my thing? Because that is definitely true.”

She grins and then asks, “But why not? Not the old white dead poet thing but the love poetry.” 

“It’s all about bemoaning how faithful the poet has been while their love is off banging someone else. What’s to find inspiring in that?”

Rory looks down on the last few bites of her french toast that has now congealed on the plate. “I don’t know,” she says quietly. “Unrequited love can be like that sometimes.”

“Can it really?” Chris asks. “Do people really spend years in love with someone who doesn’t love them back?”

It takes all her willpower not to allow her eyes to fill with tears there and then because that’s precisely what’s happened to her. Whether she’s only recently admitted it to herself or not, she’s been in love with Jess for years. In love with him, but with no hope that he would ever look at her like that again. She hasn’t even seen him for goodness sake, but it hasn’t quenched her affection for him. And being with him over the past couple of weeks has done nothing but prove how strongly she feels for him. To the point that she wonders if she will ever get over him, move on, and finally be happy.

“I think so,” she says. “The human heart has a great propensity to remain faithful towards someone even when all hope is lost, especially when there is a strong connection between two people. You can’t disregard how important that is in keeping love alive. Sometimes all it takes is seeing a picture of them, hearing about them through someone else and all the love comes flooding back as strongly as it was when you were constantly near them. I think poetry does a great job in representing that even if the poets have been dead for five hundred years.”

Chris raises his eyebrows. “You do a great job of advocating for poetry. Maybe we need to think about a reshuffle at Truncheon and bring you in deal with our poets. Maybe they’d be more inspiring with their love poems then.”

She laughs then, eager to move away from a topic that could have her outing herself in the most embarrassing way to one of Jess’ friends any minute.

But before they can strike up a safer topic of conversation, Chris is looking at his watch. “Jess!” he yells. “Jess, we need to go!”

“Hang on.”

“We’re going to be late and we still need to track Matt down.”

“One minute,” Jess calls out and then a moment later he’s  back in the diner. He has a book in his hand and is hastily tucking a pen behind his ear. “Okay, I’m ready,” he tells Chris.

“Good. Let’s grab Matt and I’m not helping him choose a unicorn.”

Jess screws up his face in disgust. “Neither am I. If he’s not finished then he gets left behind.”

Rory wants to ask where they are going and an hour ago she would have had no hesitation in doing so, but Jess’ weird attitude has her guard back up and she feels awkward and anxious about striking up conversation with him again.

“Nice talking to you, Rory,” Chris says, rising from the stool.

“Yeah, you too,” she says keeping her eyes averted from Jess. “See you both later.”

They both echo bye and Rory rapidly blinks back her tears at how bad things are between her and Jess again for reasons she doesn’t understand.

\--- \-------

Rory walks back home later that night, dispirited and lethargic. She’s struggled to get through the day without just calling it quits and going home. Everything Esther and Charlie have done that day has irritated her and she’s snapped far more times than she likes. She shouldn’t take her bad mood out on her co-workers but has found it hard to keep her annoyance in check.

“Hey, I’m home,” she calls out as she flings her keys on the table by the front door. There’s a package there, wrapped up in a plastic bag, but she shows no interest in it despite it looking very book shape.

“Oh good,” Lorelai says, walking out into the tiny foyer to meet her. She has a powdered donut in her hand and Rory makes grabby hands at it. Her mom rips it in half, holds one piece out to her and adds with a sigh, “Fine, but only because you are my only daughter.”

“And best friend,” Rory says, stuffing the donut in her mouth.

“Not sure about that anymore. Not if you’re making me share my donuts now.”

“Mean!” 

“Anyway, that came for you,” Lorelai says pointing to the package.

“For me?”

“Well it’s obviously a book. Who else would it be for in this house?”

Her mom had a point. “It’s not come in the post,” she points out. She periodically got random books  from her Amazon wishlist. It’s always exciting when that happens because half the time she’s forgotten what books are even on there and it’s always a surprise.

“I know,” Lorelai says. “And that’s the exciting thing. It’s from Jess.”

“Jess?” she asks, her heart speeding up at the sound of his name. She’s been trying to forget him all day without any luck.

“Yep. Dropped it by a couple of hours ago. Looked a little harassed.”

“His business partners slash friends are here,” she says absently as she stares intently at the wrapped up book as if it will reveal the reasons why Jess was acting so weirdly earlier and why he’s leaving books for her.

“Jess has friends?” her mom asks.  

“Surprising, I know. They seem cool,” she replied, her eyes still locked onto the package.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” 

“Yeah, of course,” she says, blinking her eyes as if breaking a hypnotic connection. She snatches up the package and unwinds the plastic bag. Slowly, as if a fate of some kind is being revealed, she pulls out a worn paperback. It’s a Penguin Classic, well read with the cover barely hanging on to the rest of the book. It curves up slightly, which is how she knows this is Jess’ actual copy and not something he’s picked up today at a second hand bookstore. So many of his books do that from where he rolls them to stuff into his back pocket.

“Jane Austen,” Lorelai says, confused. “I didn’t peg Jess as an Austen fan.”

“He reads anything,” she says absently and cannot help the soft smile as she remembers an evening over a decade ago in this very house. Jess and Paris sitting across her kitchen table and arguing over books. Jess never had expanded on why he thought Austen would like Bukowski and she wonders if she’s getting the answer years later. 

It’s the title that gives her pause for thought.

_ Persuasion _

Blood rushes in Rory’s ear. Her breath is so shallow and rapid that she’s sure her chest is heaving like she’s an Austen heroine herself. It could be nothing more than coincidence but it’s a really weird one. Of all Austen books, he happens to leave that one for her. 

_ It has to mean something, _ she thinks and hope blooms in her chest, shaky and unsure. 

Rory turns jerkily and heads into the living towards her bedroom. 

“Dinner’s almost ready,” her mom calls out after her.

“Yeah, okay. I just need to get changed.”

It has to mean  _ something. _

With unsteady hands she opens the book and flips through the forward into the main body of text. She holds her breath as she reads the first notes that Jess has scrawled and her stomach twists up in the agony of disappointment as she realises there’s nothing out of the ordinary in them. They are Jess’ usual musings on themes and underlined sentences that stand out to him in particular.

“Stupid!” she hisses at herself. 

Of course the book is a coincidence. He’s probably left it for her to read because of their discussion about Gaskell and Margaret Hale the other day. Maybe Anne Elliot is another favourite or he means for her to be a contrast. Perhaps he doesn’t get the irony in how Anne was persuaded to break up with Wentworth because he wasn’t deemed suitable or successful enough for her. There’s definitely a chance that only she sees how relevant this particular book is for them. 

She lets the book drop from her fingers and flings herself back on her bed. Tears build in her eyes and she lets a couple fall before she blinks the moisture away. She’s not going to cry any more about this. It hurts to still be in love with someone who has moved on, but she’s a big girl and she isn’t going to let it paralyse her now.

Sitting up, she sniffles a little and then lets out a low laugh. Of all things to get her hopes up over. Letting her eyes drop back towards the book, she frowns a little as she sees it’s opened towards the very end and there’s a solid block of text lining one and half pages in a different colour pen to the rest of the notes.

She picks the books up slowly and skims the text briefly. Her heart misses a beat and then thuds back into action with a heavy thump that vibrates through her chest. It’s the declaration from Wentworth in the letter to Anne. There can be no coincidence there and her eyes skitter eagerly towards Jess’ writing.

_ I can’t help but overhear your words to Chris and I can’t stay quiet any more. Perhaps it’s a good thing that my only means of expression right now are notes in a book. Your words might not even be for me, but if they are then I want you to know that I feel the same and have done for the past ten years. No matter how many times I wished to, I could never forget you, Rory, or the impact you’ve had on me. To steal from Wentworth if your words were for me then all I need is a look from you. _

Rory reads it so quickly the first time that she misses half of what’s his written in her desperate need to get to the end. Forcing herself to slow her breathing and her eyes, she re-reads this time, drinking in every word. She can’t quite believe them. They are so very un-Jess in their romanticism but she gets why. There’s a desperation in them that she feels in her very core. His strength of feeling cannot be denied and it produces an eager need to express his thoughts in a way that’s at odds with his usual cool demeanour. 

Snatching up the book, she jumps off her bed and rushes out the door. Sprinting through the house to the front door, she ignores her mom’s call of, “Where are you going? Dinner’s ready!” and runs out the house. 

She bursts into the diner, panting at the unusual exercise and scans the place looking for Jess. In a table in the far corner she can see Matt and Chris, but no Jess. They both look up at her and smile. Chris beckons her over. She smiles absently back and shakes her head, leaving the diner once more.

Outside, she’s a little lost. She had been sure Jess would be in the diner. Frowning a little at his absence, she decides to try the bookstores. 

Ten frantic minutes later, she’s still not been able to track Jess down despite scouring Stars Hollow for him. She wonders if he’s already left. If somehow, he got scared after dropping the book off and bolted. But then she remembers that his friends are still in Stars Hollow and she doubts he would leave without them. It’s only then then that she thinks of the bridge. Slapping a hand to her forehead, she starts towards it, breaking into a run once more. 

He’s there.

Of course he’s there. He wasn’t going to be anywhere else in Stars Hollow after spilling his heart out to her on the pages of a book. This has always been their place.

Stopping as she reaches the edges of the bridge, she takes a moment to catch her breath and also to admire him in the moonlight. 

“Took you long enough,” he says, his head still bent but still aware of her presence.

“Well that’s what happens when you write confessions in books instead of speaking to the person face to face.”

The small fond smile she loves so much spreads over his lips as he turns to look at her and it roots her on the spot with how emotional it makes her feel to see it directed towards her again.

“Can you imagine me saying that?” Jess asks, amused.

“Good job you’re a writer then.”

“Yeah, although not up to my usual standards. I would have ripped them apart as an editor.”

“I don’t know,” she says with a remarkable sangfroid that she doesn’t feel. “They had quite an affect on me.”

“So your words were about me. Not about that guy you were with last week?”

Rory stops for moment, trying to work out what he’s talking about and then she laughs. “ _ Logan _ ?” she says incredulously. “Yeah, no, my words were definitely about you.”

Jess’ rare grin comes out then and he gets to his feet with the innate grace that he possesses. He holds his hand out and she walks towards it, stopping just before him. He reaches out for her hand and entwines his fingers through hers and pulls her close to him, slipping his free arm around her waist. She closes her eyes at the feel of him against her. She’s wanted this for so long and she cannot quite believe that it’s real and she’s not going to wake up and feel the disappointment lance through her as she realises it was nothing but a dream.

“I love you, Jess,” she says, tilting her head up to his. “I don’t think I ever stopped.”

The happiness in his eyes is blinding and he says, brushing his nose against hers. “I know I never stopped loving you. No matter how hard I tried.”

Closing the infinitesimal gap between them, she presses her mouth eagerly against his. He releases her hand and moves it up to cup her jaw, his fingers threading into her hair and deepens the kiss. It’s both familiar and different at the same time. His beard tickles against her skin but in a pleasant way that sends shivers down her spine, however his tongue licking confidently into her mouth has her gasping and pressing closer to him as passion takes over. No one has ever kissed her the way Jess has and it’s no different ten years later.

“That still works,” she murmurs against his lips as they break apart.

“But everything else is going to work this time, too,” he promises and she smiles happily up at him.

 


	3. Six Months Later

“Jess,” she groans as his lips slip down her throat, sucking wet kisses onto her sensitive skin, and making her squirm against him. “We’re going to be late.”

“So?”

“I promised mom we’d get there for lunch.”

He doesn’t stop, peppering kisses down her collarbone and into the valley between her breasts. Rory loses her train of thought as his lips change direction and he pulls a nipple into his mouth. She arches up as he sucks a little harder, just as she likes, and his hand slips in between her legs, teasing her and causing her to forget what they are talking about for a moment. She wants nothing more than to remain in this moment.

“Traffic. I’ll say we hit traffic,” she gasps out as his thumb rubs over her clit, causing her legs to fall further apart.

“So you don’t want me to stop?” he asks mischievously, lifting his head from her breasts.

“Shut up,” she replies with no heat and tugs him against her so she can crush her mouth to his and kiss him deeply.

His kisses still have the ability to turn her inside out and she spears her hands in his hair to tug him closer, needing to feel him against every part of her. 

Rory pouts when he pulls away but it soon melts away as he kisses a path down her body, seeking out her pleasure points before he settles in between her thighs and licks a wet path up to her clit, parting her folds so for better access. His beard tickles against her inner thighs and heightens the sensation.  He's always so good at this, at giving her a drugging sense of oblivion that she now craves.  There's a passion in Jess that's she never met in anyone else and he draws from her, too. He only has to look at her with his intense eyes, bite his lips and her panties are already damp. She undulates against him as he slides a finger into her warmth and then another and begins to pump in and out as he laps at her clit. Her eyes flutter shut and she forgets that they made plans to go and and spend the weekend in Stars Hollow. Her gasps turn to moans as he sucks her clit into his mouth and bends his fingers so he’s rubbing against that sweet spot inside her. Pleasure building, Rory bucks her hips and tangles her fingers in his hair and lets out a small scream as her orgasm hits.

“Good job we moved out and got our own place,” Jess comments as he moves back up the bed, kissing her forehead before flopping against the pillow.

“Stop being so smug and come here,” she says, pulling him into her and tangling her limbs around him.  

“Hmm...hadn’t we better get going?” he teases. “We’re meant to be in Stars Hollow for lunch and time is ticking away.”

“Well, if you want to go in this condition,” she replies, her hand slipping in between them and sliding along his hard dick, causing him to buck into her hand.

“Yeah, okay, you’ve made your point,” he pants and grabs a condom off the bedside table.

After rolling it on, he thrusts into her and she lets out a little gasp at how he fills her. She never gets used to this moment, to the feel of him inside her. Their sex life is everything it’s always threatened to be and she can never get enough of him. Part of her always regrets how they wasted a decade apart, but it’s their time apart that has made them into the people they are now.

Jess maintains a slow and steady pace that has her digging her fingers into the dimples on the small of his back as she grinds up against him, urging him on with pleas and moans. The drugging sensation of another orgasm builds, slower this with a less intense peak that rolls over her continually as her limbs turn to treacle and she cries out his name. 

He gathers her up close and she burrows deep into his arms, revelling in having him so close.

\------------

It’s at least an hour later by the time they surface again. Rory looks at the time on her phone and groans. “We’re so late.”

“Accident caused the freeway to be closed for a couple of hours.”

“Not going to fly. Mom clocked on to that excuse and now checks the traffic reports.”

“You could just tell her you had trouble getting out of bed.”

“I’m not telling her about our sex life.”

“Tut, tut, someone’s mind is in the gutter,” Jess says with a smirk. “We could have had a late night out and overslept.”

“I used that excuse last time.”

“And she believed it.”

Rory snorted. “She did not. She pretended to believe it in front of you and Luke but as soon as your backs were turned she was teasing me mercilessly about needing to make up for ten years.” Jess grimaces and she nods at him. “Now you see what I’m dealing with here.”

“We can make it a publishing emergency. I’ll get Chris-,”

“Chris?!” she exclaims sceptically. “Like he won’t make it sound as unbelievable as possible to blow our cover. Letting him and Mom meet was a very stupid mistake on our behalf.”

“Matt then,” he concedes. “Matt can call her and say I got called into the office for the morning.”

“Matt’s a better option. At least he'll actually try and sound convincing. Well, if you’re in the office all morning then we might as well make the most of it,” she says snuggling back into his arms.

Rory can’t believe the difference six months can make. Everything about her life is so much better than it was. She’s back working in a newsroom again and she feels as if her journalism career is going somewhere. Her boss has already spoken to her about the possibility of taking over as editor of the Features section once he retires in eighteen months time. Moving to Philadelphia was the impetus she needed to focus once more on her career in a more positive light.

Then there’s Jess.

Ten years has made a big difference for the both of them. He’s able to communicate in ways that he found impossible as a teenager and she’s not longer worried about what others expect and want for her.  It’s made their relationship so strong that even her grandmother has been unable to say anything derogatory about it even if she bemoans every now and again the news that Logan is marrying a French media heiress.

They moved in together within months of her moving down to Philadelphia. It seemed stupid to be paying two separate rents when they were either at her place or his. It’s everything she ever hoped for, too. They fit together so easily that it makes a mockery of just how dramatic their teenage relationship was. There’s an appreciation there now that only a decade apart can bring. In fact, Chris often complains about how sickening they are and every time Jess will kiss the top of her head or she will choose to sit on his lap rather than somewhere else, he will pretend to vomit. Doula has come down for a couple of weekends and has, with all the subtlety of a bulldozer, left several wedding magazines lying around. Even her mom has gotten on board that train and has started collating a folder of wedding tips she's picked up from the Inn. Rory is sure that one day they will marry, but for now they are happy where they are.

Her life is finally moving in the direction that she had always planned for it and she couldn’t be happier.


End file.
